Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978)

ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES

ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES (1978) Three stars

“In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock made a motion picture entitled THE BIRDS, a film which depicted a savage attack upon human beings by flocks of the winged creatures.

“People laughed.

“In the fall of 1975, 7 million black birds invaded the town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, resisting the best efforts of mankind to dislodge them.

“No one is laughing now.”

— Introduction to ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES

Watching ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES in full for the first time in possibly 30 years, it brought to mind KING KUNG FU.

Both are extremely low-budget labor-of-love parodies and tributes to both older and contemporaneous movies. Both have their dead spots and their high points. Both try many, many, many jokes. Both are filed under cult movies and “so bad they’re good.” Both love their filming locations, Wichita in KING KUNG FU and San Diego in KILLER TOMATOES. Both show people having a darn good time making a silly little movie. Both are so endearingly goofy that I end up forgiving all their various sins and transgressions and enjoying them.

Unlike KING KUNG FU, though, KILLER TOMATOES inspired three sequels — RETURN OF THE KILLER TOMATOES! (1988), KILLER TOMATOES STRIKE BACK! (1990), and KILLER TOMATOES EAT FRANCE! (1991) — plus an animated series and two video games.

Let me highlight what I liked (or loved) about KILLER TOMATOES.

— The songs are great. We have “Theme from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” “Puberty Love,” “The Mindmaker Song,” “Tomato Stomp,” and “Love Theme from Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.” I am sure that millions and millions proclaim GREASE the best musical from the film year 1978. No way! I say it’s KILLER TOMATOES all the way. I mean, both the opening and closing musical numbers are fantastic. “Theme” should have been a hit a la “The Blob” by The Five Blobs in 1958. “Love Theme” gives us better opera than YES, GIORGIO, Pavarotti’s feature film debut and farewell. I should have selected it to play at my wedding. “Puberty Love” kills the tomatoes. It’s that bad. Even badder. Just the sheet music for “Puberty Love” alone kills tomatoes smack dead in their tracks. Future Soundgarden and Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron sang “Puberty Love” around the tender age of 15. Maybe one day Pearl Jam will cover “Puberty Love.” It couldn’t be any worse than “Last Kiss.” By the way, you can’t throw tomatoes at the performers during “Puberty Love,” because all the tomatoes will be dead.

— KING KUNG FU combined King Kong and kung fu, according to a report from man on the spot Captain Obvious. KILLER TOMATOES affectionately kids monster movies, for example. Notice how the Japanese military always struggles against Godzilla. Well, in KILLER TOMATOES, the American military cannot lick our title characters. Rather, it takes playing a horrible little song named “Puberty Love” throughout San Diego Stadium. Tim Burton must have been taking notes before he made MARS ATTACKS!

— Fans of imported monster movies should have a great time with the character Dr. Nokitofa (credited to Paul Oya). KILLER TOMATOES purposely gave Dr. Nokitofa a bad dub, you know, one of those wildly inappropriate voices that just does not fit the character. I love it and I wish they gave his character more scenes with more lines. I busted a gut at his scene. When Dr. Nokitofa corrects somebody for calling tomatoes “vegetables,” he says “Technically sir, tomatoes are fags” … then his colleague Dr. Morrison says, “He means fruits.” Yes, there’s some bad taste humor in KILLER TOMATOES. Some of it works and some of it does not. Nature of the humor, so they say.

— There’s something absolutely brilliant about a character being chased by a “killer” tomato, relentlessly down the street, up the stairs, and through the hallway.

— I must admit to feeling grateful none of my newspaper bosses ever said that I have a great ass, like the editor (Ron Shapiro) tells Lois Fairchild (Sharon Taylor) in their first scene together.

— With a reporter named Lois, of course that affords KILLER TOMATOES an opportunity to kid SUPERMAN. KILLER TOMATOES came out a good two months before SUPERMAN, one of the most wildly anticipated releases in 1978.

— KILLER TOMATOES kids JAWS much more affectionately and successfully than GIANT SPIDER INVASION, A*P*E, THE HILLS HAVE EYES, and ORCA: THE KILLER WHALE, all of which took pot shots at Steven Spielberg’s game-changing summer blockbuster.

— I cannot have much of any ill will toward a film that works in a cameo for the San Diego Chicken (Ted Giannoulas) and thanks “Every Screwball in San Diego County,” that’s including Mr. Chicken, for the great crowd scene near the end of the picture.

— In conclusion, I thank director and co-writer John DeBello and fellow writers Costa Dillon and J. Stephen Peace (all three each took on even more roles) for their efforts in making a fun little movie.

Trog (1970)

TROG

TROG (1970) ***

Joan Crawford began her long cinematic career in 1925 as the double for Norma Shearer in LADY OF THE NIGHT.

She appeared in small roles in Erich von Stroheim’s THE MERRY WIDOW, King Vidor’s THE BIG PARADE, and Fred Niblo’s BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST and first made her fame in Tod Browning’s THE UNKNOWN, her 20th screen credit already by 1927.

Crawford survived the transition from silent to sound and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 1945 film noir MILDRED PIERCE.

That brings us to her final screen appearance, TROG.

To the best of all knowledge, Crawford (1906-77) is the only Academy Award winner to star in a caveman movie and speak lines “Please, Trog, let me have the girl!” and “Music hath charms that soothes the savage beast.” Aben Kandel wrote the screenplay and Peter Bryan and John Gilling received credit for original story.

Granted, she’s also the only Academy Award winner to star in a Blue Öyster Cult song, a ditty inspired by the book and the film MOMMIE DEAREST written by Crawford’s far beyond estranged daughter Christina. The boys turned Joan Crawford into more of a monster than Godzilla. That part in the song where Mommie Dearest is calling for bad little Christina, it just doesn’t get much better than that in this oh so cruel bitch of a world. “Joan Crawford has risen from the grave,” indeed.

Back on point: I enjoyed TROG a good deal, and it’s one of those films that inspires the very best stories.

Film critic Pauline Kael (1919-2001) wrote, “Joan Crawford plays Stella Dallas with an ape instead of a baby girl. Some actors will do anything to be in movies: she probably would have played the ape.”

Herman Cohen (1925-2002), a producer whose credits include BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA and I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF, said that Crawford’s alcoholism raged during TROG and she had 100-proof vodka in her frosted Pepsi Cola glass. He added that Crawford brought four cases of the juice with her to England, because of its unavailability in Merrie Olde. (Speaking of Pepsi, Crawford, once married to the chairman of the board and CEO of Pepsi and then herself a board of the directors member, works in one brief moment of product placement during an early scene.)

Freddie Francis (1917-2007), a two-time Academy Award winner for Best Cinematography for SONS AND LOVERS and GLORY, said that he regretted directing TROG (which he called terrible) and that Crawford had so much trouble remembering her lines they had to resort to using “idiot cards” to get through her scenes.

Former English professional wrestler Joe Cornelius played the title character in TROG and he defended Crawford against those accusations in a 2015 interview with cult film director and fan John Waters after the British Film Institute retrospective of the film.

In the ring, they called Cornelius “The Dazzler.” From the Online World of Wrestling, “What a presence ‘The Dazzler’ made when he entered the ring, the wavy jet black hair, the dazzling smile, the eyebrows! Damn! He had it all, a personality as big as the Royal Albert Hall and ring savvy second to none, he was like a puppet master with strings fastened to the hearts of every member of the audience.”

Guess at this point we should discuss exactly what’s a Trog.

Trog is short for “troglodyte” or a person who lived in a cave, especially in prehistoric times. He’s proclaimed, in promotion of the film, as having the strength of 20 demons, so it makes perfect sense to have Cornelius play the role.

Crawford stars as Dr. Brockton, who of course represents science against those who just want to destroy the “monster.” She wants to reach and teach Mr. Trog. She wants to domesticate “The Missing Link,” half-man and half-ape with a costume borrowed from 2001. These domestication scenes are worth their weight in gold, especially the one when Trog learns how to play catch. “Good boy, Trog!”

Thankfully, for the sake of the movie and its cult following, Crawford does not condescend to her role. She plays it absolutely 100 percent straight and resolutely serious. In other words, Crawford plays it just like she did in MILDRED PIERCE. That makes TROG even funnier than if she just played it winking at the audience the entire time.

Michael Gough (1916-2011) opposes Brockton and Trog from his very first appearance. I doubt Gough used TROG in his audition for Tim Burton’s BATMAN, because his bad manners here as Sam Murdock do not mesh with Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s dedicated butler. We await the fate that waits for Mr. Murdock and it is well worth the wait.

During his attempted domestication, Trog freaks out both at the color red and more upbeat music.

That got me thinking: What if they played Trog the Troggs’ “Love is All Around” from 1967? Just forget about “Wild Thing.” Yes, the Troggs, an English rock band originally called the Troglodytes before the name was shortened, had a huge impact on future noise with their songs covered by Jimi Hendrix, the Buzzcocks, and Hüsker Dü.

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

WILLY WONKA

WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1971) Three-and-a-half stars

Over the years, many individual performers have walked away with a movie and made it their own. For example, Gene Wilder in WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.

Wilder provides one of the great movie entrances at about the 45-minute mark of the picture and it’s about darn time because it’s a bit of a slog before we reach the chocolate factory. Our expectations are very high by this point in the picture and Wilder’s Willy Wonka meets and even surpasses them. It was Wilder himself who insisted that he make such an entrance.

“When I make my first entrance, I’d like to come out of the door carrying a cane and then walk toward the crowd with a limp,” Wilder said. “After the crowd sees Willy Wonka is a cripple, they all whisper to themselves and then become deathly quiet. As I walk toward them, my cane sinks into one of the cobblestones I’m walking on and stands straight up, by itself; but I keep on walking, until I realize that I no longer have my cane. I start to fall forward, and just before I hit the ground, I do a beautiful forward somersault and bounce back up, to great applause.”

This entrance establishes Wonka’s unpredictability right from the start.

Wilder magnificently expresses all the sides of Willy Wonka’s personality. It turns on a dime from joy and wonder to malevolent anger at the selfish children who found their golden ticket in a Wonka bar. Their golden tickets earned the children a pass to Wonka’s factory. The five children are Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teavee, and Charlie Bucket and they are each joined by one parent or grandparent in the case of final ticket winner Charlie Bucket. The bad children are punished in unspeakable, horrifying ways for their indiscretions. That’ll show ‘em and serves ‘em right, greedy little bastards.

When the beloved Wilder died in 2016 at the age of 83, I thought immediately of his performance as Willy Wonka and his spotlight song “Pure Imagination,” a number written by the British duo of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. “If you want to view paradise / Simply look around and view it / Anything you want to do it / Wanna change the world / There’s nothing to it / There is no life I know / To compare with pure imagination / Living there you’ll be free / If you truly wish to be.” At its very, very best, WILLY WONKA approaches THE WIZARD OF OZ and Wilder’s on par with Margaret Hamilton and Frank Morgan and gang. They all share a certain joy of performance that’s wonderful to behold.

Like THE WIZARD OF OZ, WILLY WONKA undoubtedly introduced multitudes of children to scary movies. The Haunted Forest, the Wicked Witch of the West, flying monkeys, et cetera, in the 1939 film and the Oompa-Loompas and the boat ride in WILLY WONKA.

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” author Roald Dahl (1916-90) absolutely hated the 1971 screen adaptation. Dahl received credit for writing the screenplay, but it was the uncredited David Seltzer who came in and made script changes that raised Dahl’s ire.

What did Mr. Dahl hate about the picture? The shift in focus from Charlie to Willy Wonka. Check. The musical numbers. Check. Casting Gene Wilder rather than Spike Milligan, Dahl’s stated preference. Check. Guess the question should be changed to what didn’t Mr. Dahl hate about WILLY WONKA. This whole situation reminds one that Stephen King hates Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING.

I saw WILLY WONKA for the first time in fifth grade (1990) and read Dahl’s novel the next school year. I loved Dahl’s novel, but I have not read it since completing it during sixth grade, roughly the same age as the precocious golden ticket winners. Meanwhile, I have seen the 1971 version several times since that first encounter nearly three decades ago, on cable TV (Teavee), VHS, and DVD. I do think of the film more often than I do the book, and I believe that it has almost everything to do with the Wilder performance.

I have skipped Tim Burton’s 2005 adaptation CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY & I just remember being appalled from the start by still photographs of Johnny Depp’s take on Willy Wonka. Remember that scene in ANIMAL HOUSE when the older members of Delta Tau Chi pelt that picture of pledge Flounder with beer cans? That’s about how I feel every time I see a picture of Depp as Wonka. (Generally speaking, I have no problem with Burton and Depp movies. I love ED WOOD and like SLEEPY HOLLOW and SWEENEY TODD a lot.)

In a 2013 interview with Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne (1932-2017), Wilder shared his true feelings on the 2005 version.

“I think it’s an insult,” he said. “Johnny Depp, I think, is a good actor, but I don’t care for that director [Tim Burton]. He’s a talented man, but I don’t care for him doing stuff like he did.”

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

DAY 21, THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD.jpeg

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD (1949) Three-and-a-half stars

Walt Disney favored package films after the release of BAMBI (1942) and released about one every year to close out the 1940s.

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD runs at 68 minutes, split at just the right length between the opening Mr. Toad segment based on “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame and the closing Ichabod Crane segment based on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving. We have narration duties split between Basil Rathbone (MR. TOAD) and Bing Crosby (ICHABOD), plus Crosby handles voice duties for both Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones and sings a few songs. Crosby sings “The Headless Horseman” tale Brom Bones tells at the campfire that sticks in Ichabod Crane’s imagination on that famous long ride home.

Since we’re on a month of horror movie reviews, I will be focusing on the ICHABOD segment for the purpose of these few hundred words.

I must have first read “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in eighth grade and it’s long been one of my favorite stories. It’s compulsively readable (an engrossing yarn as the publicists said in 1820) and I’m looking around for that damn Irving anthology I bought several years ago. It must be hiding, of course, probably somewhere right around that Edgar Allen Poe anthology that could squish a spider the size of a Buick.

Just take a prose sample:

“As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought his whistle was answered: it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches,” Irving wrote. “As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused and ceased whistling; but on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan—his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.

“About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and thickly wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley’s Swamp. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeoman concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.”

As much as I like the Johnny Depp and Tim Burton SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999), it only appropriates the title and a few character names from Irving’s short story. It’s laughable when you read “Based on ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ by Washington Irving” in the credits, because Ichabod Crane’s transformed into a horror movie hero who’s rather normal even by Burton and Depp standards and he’s no longer a gold digger like in Irving’s story, where Ichabod schemes after Katrina Van Tassel more for her money than her looks and personality. Ichabod becomes the standard issue lovable movie eccentric and he’s also a constable and not a schoolteacher. Of course, that plays into a murder mystery that manufactures more twists than a year’s worth of production at a pretzel factory.

I have to stifle laughter at this very instant after reading the Wikipedia entry for the 1999 version, which starts “SLEEPY HOLLOW is a 1999 American gothic supernatural horror film directed by Tim Burton. It is a film adaptation loosely based on Washington Irving’s 1820 short story ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’”

How loosely? Very loosely. Maybe as loosely as the Demi Moore version of SCARLET LETTER.

Burton’s film seems more heavily influenced by Hammer Films (none other than Christopher Lee plays a small role) than the original story, which plays on legends, superstitions, and Ichabod’s overactive imagination for its horrors. SLEEPY HOLLOW makes one feel that it’s merely exploiting the Washington Irving name and literary reputation to give class to what would otherwise be another gory horror movie with a rather convoluted plot.

Take away the slapstick and Crosby’s songs about Ichabod and Katrina, the Walt Disney version sticks closer to the spirit and letter of Washington Irving and the final dozen minutes of ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD are a vivid reminder of Disney films’ ability to scare audiences in classics like SNOW WHITE, PINOCCHIO, and BAMBI.

Ultimately, though, with the Burton film, I accept it for what it is rather than what it is not. Cue to “Seinfeld” and “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” It does have a lot of virtues and I’ve enjoyed it every time seeing it since that first time in a theater in late 1999. Hey, that reminds me, I need to grab my VHS copy and put the damn thing on.