Newton Got Beaned by the Apple Good

This blog post first appeared in my secret e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, which wouldn't be a secret to you if you subscribed in my sidebar to the right.

A few days early, I finished my goal of writing three screenplays in six weeks, a feat I never thought I could master.  The scripts for the first first two, code-named KRASNIKOV and SEQUENCE SIX, have already been approved by the producer and are ready to roll on.  The last one, THE HORRIBLE ASP, I boomed out to director Mark Polonia this morning after ten days of feverish writing, getting up early and working through lunch hours and working late at night, and I hope to hear about it soon.

I wrote them so fast I don't think they could be any crazier, with demonic possession, time travel, alien invasions, telepathic sharks, zombies, creepy dolls, haunted houses, mad scientists, cavemen, crazy cat ladies, and of course caged women forced to fight for their freedom.  And a bunch of stuff I can't remember right this second.

If you think that last one was a riff on a movie I watched over, and over again, on late-night cable, LUST FOR FREEDOM, suffice to say I have waited a lifetime for this opportunity.  But what I am really riffing on, and what inspired me, was the work of b-movie director Thomas Carr, who in 1950 used a small troupe of aging western stars and shot six cowboy movies in 30 days using some pretty interesting methods that have not, to my knowledge, been replicated before or since.  I think this achievement deserves wider recognition, and have been such an advocate for Mr. Carr's work that I convinced Mark Polonia to buy these movies off of Amazon and see it for himself.  And, with my birthday money, I just did the same thing as a little present to myself for driving myself bats (and probably my wife) getting these done in time.

I actually deposited most of my birthday money like a good homeowner who wants new linoleum, but I also bought SUBURRA by Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo De Cataldo, which just came out in paperback from World Noir a couple of weeks ago.  I have had my eye on this one for a while, having seen the Italian film version of the novel as well as hearing about the Netflix series coming out soon.  It is a noir that takes place in the suburban area of Rome called Ostia (which I have visited via rail a number of times).  Eager to dive into the book, and report back.  Especially now that I have a little time on my hands.

Speaking of time on my hands, I did finish WESTWORLD, and liked it okay.  Every time it got a little overheated it would be a little philosophical again, and then veer back, and then veer back again.  But worth watching.

Thanks for hanging in there.  More news soon.

Mott the Hoople and the Game of Life

Sometimes work leads to more work, which is why I haven't boomed out a secret e-newsletter for a little while.  I have been getting up early, working through lunch hours, and working into the night when I would rather be binging on WESTWORLD on a new script project that is due quickly.

It's funny how many parallels there are between the first screenplay I ever had turned into a movie, the Bigfoot mockumentary AMONG US, and the most recent (lucky thirteenth) one, a retro-styled Bigfoot movie titled IN SEARCH OF (ISO).

When I was working on the set of AMONG US, Mark Polonia was asked by a distributor to produce three more movies that year, and he asked me to write all three.  At that time I didn't believe I could write three screenplays in a single year, so we agreed that I would re-write two and the third one would be an original script.

The first became the infamous PETER ROTTENTAIL, which was a rewrite of a handwritten script called PSYCHO CLOWN, and it has entered the halls of infamy by being rated one of the Worst Horror Films of All Time by the British website Nerdly, and no less an august publication than Fangoria devoted an hour-long podcast to its wonders.  I did the rewrite over a delirious long weekend and I think it's raw and funny but obviously your mileage may vary.

The second rewrite was of a piranha movie called RAZORTEETH, which made nary a ripple, so to speak, a worse fate than its predecessor.  Only about 25 percent of my rewrite made it to the screen through various production hiccups and I think now it is a bit of a rarity.

The deal came apart before my original screenplay DEMONS ON A DEAD END STREET was filmed, and I have been sorry about that all these years later as I think it is my best screenplay that has never been made (the second best is a science fiction screenplay I wrote called TETHYS).  It once looked to be produced in New Zealand when the rights came back to me but that didn't work out either, so I have it around if the day ever comes that somebody might want it.  I just this weekend heard from a friend that a colleague of his had sold a screenplay, with all rights attached, over Craigslist, so there's that.

So on the set of IN SEARCH OF I learned Mark was working on a three-movie deal and again asked me to be a part.  By now, almost 15 years later, I have learned through much trial and error that I can crank up a screenplay in three or four weeks.  But what caught my attention about this one is that all three screenplays would be more or less shot back to back, more or less on the SyFy Channel model with crazy premises, and would all be needed in about six weeks.

Challenge accepted.  Loyal readers know that I have made much of the accomplishment of stalwart b-director Thomas Carr, who in 1950, at the very ass end of the b-movie western era, took a pair of aging former Hopalong Cassidy sidekicks and a handful of rewritten scripts and shot six c-grade oaters in 30 days.  That these are all watchable, and in fact enjoyable, is a tremendous achievement and not talked about nearly enough today (and you can buy them all cheap as THE BIG IRON COLLECTION on Amazon).

These new scripts are all high-concept titles, but I will again take a page from better (comic book and fiction and newsletter) writer Warren Ellis and give them all non-disclosure-like codenames here (and by high concept, I mean like the guy who thought there should be a bunch of movies about sharks that get sucked up into tornadoes).

One idea which I am going to codename KRASNIKOV caught my fancy right away, and I broke my landspeed record by writing it in two weeks.  The distributor told Mark that they had to be weird and crazy and as loyal readers know I don't have to be told that twice.

A week after and I am halfway through the one I am calling SEQUENCE SIX which started off nutty but got a little nuttier when Mark called last night and said "put some zombies in it."

The third one which I am calling THE HORRIBLE ASP, because I just heard that REM song, I have had the most trouble wrapping my mind around, even though it was the only one that also came with an outline.

I am hoping that in about three more weeks I will have them all done.  I am to the point in my career that I only work with the people I want to and do projects that are interesting to me.  And I have always wanted the kind of Nerd Extreme Sports Challenge that Thomas Mann took on, all those years ago.

I'll let you know soon about my progress.

In Praise of Shamrock and Lucky

In 1950, at the waning days of the Western b-movie era, two aging former sidekicks of Hopalong Cassidy and a prolific b-movie director shot six C-grade western movies in 30 days.  I think this is a tremendous achievement in the wild and crazy history of b-movies and isn't talked about enough.  It could really be a primer for how movies could be made, but I don't know if this feat will ever be achieved again.

Notable in the production is that the main actors all have the same character names in every movie; James Ellison is Shamrock, Russell Hayden is Lucky, Julie Adams is Ann, and well-known character actors Raymond Hatton and Fuzzy Knight play the Colonel and Deacon, respectively; and this is despite Hatton and Knight playing both good guys and villains, actual Colonels or nicknames, actual Deacons or a person named Deacon.  I suppose if you shoot six movies at once it's hard enough to keep everything straight without having a different name in every movie.

The same supporting cast mixes it up and plays different parts in each movie, bad guys and deputies and barbers and bartenders.  Notable among them is former silent star Tom Tyler, at the end of his career and generally playing the villain's right-hand man.

Apparently they shot all the scenes for each movie at each location--be it a ranch, a saloon, the western town streets, and so on--at one time, and moved on.  Some stock footage--notably of a runaway stagecoach--is repeated also.  Of course, when these movies were made there was no notion that they could or would be watched back to back on DVD, so these elements would never be noticed by moviegoers, and was a pretty clever idea by director Thomas Mann.  They are all also apparently rewrites of other b-movies from decades past.

 And the movies, perhaps in spite of or because of their shortcomings (and short running times), are pretty enjoyable.  My favorite is COLORADO RANGER, where the Shamrock Kid, Lucky, and the Colonel are rogues hired to run off some homesteaders; they take a shine to Ann instead and switch sides.  This one shows an easy camaraderie as the trio cheat at cards, practice trick shooting, and end up having to take care of a baby--who they pacify by letting him play with a gun.

CROOKED RIVER changes it up as Lucky leads a gang of bad guys against Shamrock, but has a change of heart when one of his henchmen (John Cason, who has memorably bad guy turns in several of these ) blinds Lucky to make off with Lucky's kid sister Ann.  Lucky was getting tired of the outlaw life anyway and jumps back over to the right side for a memorable finale.

FAST ON THE DRAW starts with one of those repeated stagecoach scenes, and Shamrock's parents are killed by outlaws, with little Shamrock the only survivor.  He develops a phobia against guns, which is unfortunate when his motor-mouthed sidekick Lucky brags them up to the point that they are made lawmen in a town terrorized by an outlaw called The Cat. Fortunately Shamrock gets over his childhood fears in time to deal with The Cat.

In MARSHAL OF HELDORADO Lucky takes what he thinks is a sweet job as sheriff in a town without realizing the short life expectancies of the former lawmen.  The town is terrorized by the Tulliver Brothers (with good scenes from all the usual supporting cast), and Lucky's only help is Shamrock, who plays a guileless Eastern dude (who rides into town on a mule!).  Naturally Shamrock has a few tricks up his sleeve after all--including inducing two of the outlaws to shoot each other--and the good guys win in the end.

WEST OF THE BRAZOS is a knotty yarn for a b-western as The Cyclone Kid (John Cason, good again, and Tom Tyler gets a bigger villainous part too) pretends to be Shamrock to claim jump on his family ranch.  But Shamrock is on his way home after many years away.  He crosses paths with a wounded marshal, who convinces Shamrock to impersonate him to capture The Cyclone Kid.  Shamrock ends up in jail for impersonating a police officer, and fake Shamrock seems triumphant, but Lucky saves the day with a neat trick.  Lucky has an interesting role in this one; he was deafened during the war and has learned to read lips, and a couple of memorable scenes make it look like he has nerves of steel because he can't hear people shooting at him.

HOSTILE COUNTRY is probably the least of them, as Shamrock goes back home after his mother's death (again) to meet a stepfather he doesn't know (also part of WEST OF THE BRAZOS) and finds his stepfather making enemies of everyone around, including Shamrock and Lucky.  As in most of these, everybody isn't quite who they say they are and some fistfights and gunplay is required to sort it all out.

These have been nicely collected in a two DVD set called The Big Iron Collection, and is worth checking out and thinking about.