Blackenstein (1973)

BLACKENSTEIN (1973) No stars
Blackenstein just might possibly be the worst horror movie I have ever seen and off the top of my head, that means it competes alongside such turkey bombs as Jaws: The Revenge, Monster a Go-Go, and Robot Monster. Now, that would be one way to do a horror movie marathon.

Poor Eddie. Dude lost both arms and both legs in Vietnam and he’s bullied in a Veterans Hospital near the beginning of Blackenstein over ice cream. He does have the love of the lovely Dr. Winifred Walker, who hooks Eddie up with the brilliant surgeon and DNA researcher Dr. Stein. Dr. Stein can attach new limbs to Eddie and he’ll be walking just like you and I in no time says this preeminent doctor. Not so fast, my fiend, not with Dr. Stein’s dastardly assistant Malcomb around.

This super creep Malcomb falls instantly in love, well he calls it love anyway, with Dr. Winifred, and by the way, the actor who plays Malcomb (Roosevelt Jackson) gives one of the most subtle performances ever. He does not foreshadow any upcoming plot developments by staring a hole right through Dr. Winifred the first half-dozen scenes they share. That’s why I called him super creep just a couple moments ago, because he’s super creepy.

Malcomb declares his lust, er, love for Dr. Winifred, Dr. Winifred tells Malcomb no because she loves Eddie, Malcomb becomes all spurned and switches Eddie’s DNA with that of a caveman, and Eddie becomes, you guessed it, the title character. That’s when Blackenstein really takes a dive for the dumpster, as it departs from soap opera to horrible horror with soul music interludes that quite frankly belong in another movie.

Blackenstein first wanted to cash in on the coattails of the 1972 hit Blacula and I have read that American International, one of the best exploitation film outlets, chose Scream Blacula Scream over Blackenstein. Gene Siskel reviewed Blackenstein in 1975, when distributors tried passing it off as Black Frankenstein with their fervent Malcomb-like desire to siphon off the success of the Mel Brooks satire / affectionate tribute Young Frankenstein. Siskel managed to be extremely generous when he rated Blackenstein one-half star.

Blackenstein, in short, has got no soul and that’s why it failed then and fails now or any moment in time. Not only does it have no soul, which is certainly bad enough, it’s got no joy of filmmaking like Edward R. Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space and Ray Dennis Steckler’s The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, both of which are somehow considered worse than Blackenstein. The director of Blackenstein should be glad we cannot remember his name without an Internet search party.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963) 1/2*

Let’s start this review with a bold statement and prediction: IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD is the worst comedy I have ever seen and it will remain that way for all my life, even if I would be blessed to reach 100 years old.

Fact: I did not laugh once during the 3-hour, 19-minute duration of IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD.

I consider it a lock on being the worst comedy I will ever see because of that length. Sure, I can go 90 or 95 or even 100 minutes not laughing at some dumb or aggressively stupid comedy, no problem, but 189 minutes proved to be a new personal record for remaining in a state of stone cold silence during a comedy. I only broke that silence to express disbelief with a grunt or a sigh. To be honest these intermittent sighs were deep enough to fill the Grand Canyon.

Yes, I almost forgot LEONARD PART 6 (believe me, how I tried forgetting), which I gave no stars and called “the worst movie ever made.” That’s right, it passes comedy straight into being bad enough to encompass all genres.

Why the half-star for a repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, repetitive comedy? Because I liked looking at the cast members during any fleeting moments when they were quiet. Once they resumed talking, well, shit, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD turned back into unfunny shit on a stick. Yeah, I felt like IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD beat me over the head with unfunny shit on a stick for roughly a quarter of a quarantine day. I will do my best to utilize past tense during this review because I have no intent to ever watch IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD ever, ever, ever, ever again.

I should rephrase one portion of the paragraph immediately above. Very, very, very, very rarely do any of the characters merely talk during IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. Just imagine a crowded room populated by people who feel compelled to compete with each other for who can be the loudest (and most obnoxious) person in the world, forget the room. And then being trapped inside that room for over three hours describes this movie in a nutshell. Perhaps it would be too much to add real cars to the room. Nah, instead, we’ll have a movie theater size TV in the room playing a loop of car chases at full volume intensity.

Here’s a main character who speaks in a voice resembling that of a normal person: Emeline-Marcus Finch (Dorothy Provine), whose character seems like the movie loaned her from a library amidst the chaos in this loud, loud, loud, loud movie. They no doubt used the Frances Howard Goldwyn – Hollywood Regional Branch Library, only a three-minute walk from the Walk of Fame.

The film establishes a basic tone early on, when five of the characters stand around and squabble over their potential take of the stolen $350,000 hidden under the ‘Big W’ in the Santa Rosita State Park. Yes, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD is basically one long argument over money interrupted by chases, overacting, mugging, pitfalls and pratfalls, dancing, overacting, cameo appearances, police chatter, overacting, an intermission, pitfalls and pratfalls, plane crashes, explosions, and (for old times’ sake) overacting.

Just take a look at some of the cast: Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Terry-Thomas, Jonathan Winters, Jim Backus, William Demarest, Jimmy Durante, Peter Falk, Jack Benny, Joe E. Brown, Norman Fell, Stan Freberg, Leo Gorcey, Edward Everett Horton, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Jerry Lewis, ZaSu Pitts, Carl Reiner, Arnold Stang, and the Three Stooges, with more than half of them in minute roles. What a sad, sad, sad, sad waste of talent!

Among the main characters, it’s easy to pick my least favorite: Mrs. Marcus, played by Merman. She’s awful from the start and remains awful for the entire length of the picture. IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD partisans argue that she’s a character that people love to hate. I, however, am not one of those people, because I only hate this character. Thankfully, Merman closed out her career with a hilarious cameo in AIRPLANE!

Gordon Gekko told us “Greed is good” during WALL STREET. Meanwhile, nearly 25 years earlier, IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD told us “Greed is bad, mkay?”

One more zinger before closing time: I laughed more during Stanley Kramer’s INHERIT THE WIND than I did IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. (If I ever watch Kramer’s JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, I’ll be sure to revise this final paragraph and gag.)

Leonard Part 6 (1987)

LEONARD PART 6

LEONARD PART 6 (1987) No stars

Before all Bill Cosby’s legal troubles, LEONARD PART 6 was merely one of the worst movies ever made.

After more than 60 women accused Cosby of crimes such as sexual assault, rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, and sexual battery dating back to 1965, we can now safely call LEONARD PART 6 the worst movie ever made.

First and foremost, there’s not a single laugh to be found during the 85 minutes of LEONARD PART 6.

Seriously.

Not one.

Epic fail, especially for a man considered at that point in time by millions of viewers to be one of the funniest people in the world.

At the time of the release of LEONARD PART 6, Cosby was star of the No. 1 show on TV, “The Cosby Show.” “The Cosby Show” spent five consecutive seasons on top of the ratings, from Fall 1985 through Spring 1990. It honestly seemed like Cosby was inescapable during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, between his TV show and product endorsements. Coca-Cola, Jell-O, home computers, E.F. Hutton, Kodak, you name it.

Speaking of Coca-Cola, the beverage company based in Atlanta, it owned Columbia Pictures at the time of LEONARD PART 6 and there’s an obscene amount of product placement for Coca-Cola and Coke in LEONARD PART 6. Who released LEONARD PART 6? Columbia. In one infamous scene in particular, Cosby holds a bottle in his hand and it says Coca-Cola on one side and Coke on the other. They make sure we see both sides very subtle like.

Jane Fonda and her workout make a cameo and I believe that Cosby’s super spy Leonard Parker even showers in Perrier.

This movie is drenched in product placement, including Cosby himself.

How do I proceed from here with this spoof of secret agent and spy movies?

Guess we should briefly hone in on the joke of the title. Yeah, that’s right, this is the sixth Leonard Parker super spy adventure. Get it? Sure, we all do. I say that we all should consider ourselves blessed in that we did not actually have to see the previous five adventures. I just reviewed JASON LIVES and it does a greater job of spy spoofing (than LEONARD PART 6) with its brief parody of the famous James Bond gun barrel sequence.

Leonard is a retired CIA spy and millionaire restaurant owner. Of course, he’s brought out of retirement to save the world (or at least Northern California, anyway) from Mephistophelian vegetarian Medusa Johnson. Medusa’s played by Gloria Foster (1933-2001), who should be remembered as the Oracle in THE MATRIX and forgotten as Medusa. I believe that she would have wanted it that way.

What happened to the CIA agent to create the need for Leonard Parker’s return? He’s eaten alive by diabolical rainbow trout. Yes, that’s all part of the plan for Medusa and her thugs. She’s enlisted the animal kingdom on her side.

I don’t know if my brain can handle any more thoughts or if my fingers can bang out any more words about LEONARD PART 6, but I must persevere and if just one person out there reading this review decides to never watch LEONARD PART 6, I know that I have done my job and performed humanity a great and honorable service.

Nothing about this stupid film makes any sense.

TROLL 2 did a touch better job with the evil vegetarian plot on a $200,000 budget, whereas LEONARD PART 6 blew $25 million. Now, if somebody could just piece together Darren Ewing’s infamous “Oh my God!” reaction from TROLL 2 with a scene from LEONARD PART 6, that would be utterly fantastic and would make my year.

Why does it say “Ipso Facto” on Leonard’s helmet? Why oh why is there a flying ostrich? Who thought it would be a brilliant idea to have vegetarians killed by raw hamburger meat and glittery hot dogs? Why does Leonard’s wife enjoy pouring food on him? Why? Why? Why?

Cosby himself went on Larry King and denounced LEONARD PART 6 before its release. How often does that happen with any movie? Of course, LEONARD PART 6 is not just any movie, it’s the worst one ever made.

We should be thankful LEONARD PART 7 never happened, although, to be honest, it’s bad enough that Cosby gave us GHOST DAD, perhaps the second worst movie ever made, three years after LEONARD PART 6.