NEIL SIMON: VOICE OF THE URBAN UNDERDOG

As with most everything, comedy has a shelf life. At least certain kinds of comedy, it seems. Example: for reasons unknown to me (and a great many comedy writers, I imagine), a TV show as old as I Love Lucy has this timeless something about it that can make me laugh as heartily today as I did as a child. Meanwhile, the humor I once found in a more contemporary comedy like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, feels remote at best.

Such is the case with Neil Simon. A writer whose work I absolutely adored when I was young, but has a tendency not to play so well for me today. (Oddly enough, at age ten, there were only three non-performer show-biz names I knew: Walt Disney, Alfred Hitchcock, and Neil Simon…and Simon didn’t have a weekly TV show),

When I was growing up, I remember having this strong perception of comedy as this nebulous entertainment entity divided into distinct and separate camps. There was the schticky, vaudeville-style comedy of Bob Hope and Milton Berle which was favored by my parents; the youthful “with it” comedy of The Smothers Brothers and Rowan & Martin; the female perspective comedy of Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers; and the sketch-based, relationship-comedy of duos like Stiller & Meara and Clair & McMahon.

Wedged somewhere in between was what I’d call the 1960s equivalent of today’s calculatedly schlubby Comedy Club standups: the buttoned-down, put-upon, everyman.

And whether it was the observational, college-dweeb vibe of a Woody Allen or the beleaguered middle-class carping of a Bob Newhart or George Gobel - the look was strictly urban/suburban and the comedy rooted in giving voice to the frustrations of the average Joe as he  struggled to keep in step with the too-fast changes of contemporary society. From this latter camp, the comedy voice of Neil Simon emerged.

 

At a time when television was a haven for prizefights, variety shows, and Playhouse 90 dramas; lightweight, “pleasing the tired businessman” Broadway comedies were the sophisticated sitcoms of the day. Neil Simon’s TV-trained, joke-a-minute, gag-driven writing style was tailor-made for this environment, making his transition from Your Show of Shows comedy writer to playwright a seamless one.

Indeed, Neil Simon’s particular brand of working-class farce was so well-suited to the timbre of the times that it’s something of a miracle his work was able to distinguish itself amidst the roster of interchangeable, look-alike, sound-alike Broadway shows of the era: Any Wednesday, Boeing Boeing, Goodbye Charlie, Mary Mary, Come Blow Your Horn, Sunday in New York, Enter Laughing, The Fun Couple, The Owl & the Pussycat, Critics Choice, and Luv.

Both a popular and prolific Tony Award-winning playwright who at one time boasted four shows running concurrently on Broadway (Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Sweet Charity, The Star Spangled Girl), Simon had, by the end of the 60s, established himself as the preeminent voice of contemporary comedy. His proficiency as a gun-for-hire for flagging Broadway shows earning him the nickname, “Doc” Simon.

When Hollywood inevitably came calling, Simon opted out of adapting Come Blow Your Horn, his debut effort, to the big screen. However, his dissatisfaction with how that film turned out led to his thereafter writing the screenplays for virtually every film adapted from his rapidly-growing resume of Broadway successes. He obviously had the right idea, for the boxoffice success of the movie versions of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and The Odd Couple (1968) made him a nationwide household name. (Interestingly, both sitcomy-films were turned into actual TV programs in 1970, the same year The-Out-of-Towners opened in theaters.) 

 

Looking back at my own introduction to the man, I have to say Mr. Simon and I got off to a pretty rocky start. The very first Neil Simon movie I ever saw was a Late Show TV broadcast of 1963’s Come Blow Your Horn. To say I loathed it would be a gross understatement. Embodying pretty much everything I’ve come to hate about smirky 60s sex comedies (bubble-haired bimbos a vaselined playboys all looking as if they reeked of alcohol and cigarettes), it’s a film - in spite of efforts made over the years - I’ve yet to make it all the way through.

Happily, in 1967 the more accessible (not to mention infinitely funnier) Barefoot in the Park was released, and The Odd Couple the following year. What with sitting through both films several times over their respective summers, and reading published copies of Simon’s plays at the local library; by the time The-Out-of-Towners was released, I was a well-versed Neil Simon fan at the ripe old age of twelve.  

 

I’ve often wondered why, at an age when most kids are drawn to anarchic comedies which flout authority and poke fun at convention, I was so attracted to the middle-class/middle-brow humor of Neil Simon. There’s no denying I was drawn to Simon’s gag-driven style ‒ more jokey than witty ‒ which was within my grasp and never pitched over my adolescent head. Or maybe because in school I was one of those rule-following goody-two-shoes who bristled when the bad behavior of classmates was rewarded with teacher attention, I identified with Simon’s put-upon heroes. (And in case you’re wondering, yes, a 12-year-old can bristle. Very well, thank you.)

Certainly growing up in a household with parents who regularly communicated through high-decibel yelling matches lent Simon’s domestic trademark quarrel-comedy (rooted in tradition old as The Bickersons) an air of familiarity. However, what I think most sold me on Neil Simon’s movies at a young age was that they served as the perfect transitional comedies for tweens at that awkward stage: too old for The Three Stooges but too young for All About Eve. His movies were like a comedy suspension bridge between silly and sophisticated.
   

I remained a staunch Neil Simon fan throughout the 70s. A loyalty that grew increasingly difficult to sustain come the 80s and Simon’s newfound “serious phase.” While many are of the opinion that Simon produced some of his best works during this period, the last of his films I actually enjoyed was Only When I Laugh (1981), and that was largely for the performances of Joan Hackett and James Coco. My long and happy association with Neil Simon came to a permanent end with the nearly-unwatchable Max Dugan Returns (1983). I haven’t seen a Neil Simon film since.

In subsequent years, revisits to fondly remembered Simon films have been a mixed bag. While some movies still manage to amuse, too much of the comedy feels sluggish and schticky (you half expect to hear rim shots on the soundtrack after every one-liner). And bits that once made me laugh aloud now just leave me scratching my head. The Goodbye Girl is just strident; Seems Like Old Times can actually induce physical pain; you can practically see the cobwebs hanging off the dialog in The Odd Couple: and Barefoot in the Park, outside of the luminous presence of Jane Fonda, is like an episode of Love, American Style that keeps going on thirty minutes after it ends. (Fittingly, the pilot for the Barefoot in the Park TV series aired on Love, American Style as “Love and the Good Deal.”)

 

But if the exception proves the rule, a cataloging of Neil Simon movies that haven’t aged particularly well for me would be one-sided if it didn’t mention the one film of his that actually gets funnier with each passing year: 1970’s The-Out-of-Towners.

The usual Simon tropes of bickering couples and New York commentary are in attendance; but as one of his few works written expressly for the screen, it lacks the stagy, claustrophobic air of so many of his films. It's blissfully free of pretension and its only ambition is to make you laugh. And in that, The-Out-of-Towners succeeds admirably.

Link to my review of: THE-OUT-OF-TOWNERS

Copyright © Ken Anderson

ALICE AT THE PALACE 1982

A MUSIC HALL BASED ON LEWIS CARROLL'S
ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND & THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

I was never much of a fan of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I didn't enjoy it when Disney made it into the sleep-inducing animated feature, Alice in Wonderland (1951), and I enjoyed it even less when I read it as one of those books one feels obliged to read during childhood; like Huckleberry Finn, Toby Tyler, Treasure Island, et al. (well, I have to admit I actually liked Treasure Island a great deal). No doubt the reason for this can be traced to the misguided, although not unreasonable, expectation on my part that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was going to be a sweet, heartwarming fantasy along the lines of The Wizard of Oz. 

Upon reading it, however, I was more than a little shaken by just how far-from-wonder and how very close to nightmarish Carroll’s idea of a Wonderland turned out to be. In fact, what with Alice’s difficult-to-relate-to Victorian reserve; Carroll’s often confounding word riddles and flexible logic; and particularly John Tenniel’s unsettling-bordering-on-grotesque illustrations (think the original Broadway poster art for Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd); Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland proved itself a fitting exemplar of the contrary nature of Wonderland by managing somehow to be simultaneously soporific and horrific.

It was only many years later, when a college class brought about my having to revisit the book, did I ultimately come to appreciate the sophisticated wit and literary ingeniousness of Carroll’s Alice, her surreal fantasy world, and its eccentric inhabitants. Apparently my childhood frustration with the material stemmed from assuming the word "wonder" in Wonderland alluded to the word "wonderful"; not (as I should have known from personal experience) bewilderment and confusion..."curiouser and curiouser" indeed.

But appreciating a book still is a far cry from actually enjoying it.
Feeling as I did, small wonder (heh, heh) it took no less esteemed and idolized a personage than Meryl Streep to get me anywhere near Wonderland again.

Meryl Streep as Alice Pleasance Liddell (seven and a half, exactly)

First broadcast on NBC in January of 1982 under the network’s Project Peacock banner (a series of prime-time specials for children), Alice at the Palace is a pared-down, 90-minute adaptation of a theatrical piece Streep first starred in back in 1978. Then titled Wonderland in Concert, this original “concert drama” with book, music, and lyrics by Tony-nominee Elizabeth Swados (Runaways), started out as a bare-bones Joseph Papp / New York Shakespeare Festival workshop production. In 1980 it was revived Off-Broadway in slightly more expensively-mounted form as Alice in Concert, winning Streep a Best Actress Obie Award. This TV-movie adaptation draws from the 1980 production, utilizing much of the original cast and substituting the show’s otherwise bare stage and contemporary street clothes with a mid-19^th Century British Music Hall setting and sumptuously witty (and utilitarian) Victorian Era-inspired costumes by Theoni V. Aldredge (The Great Gatsby, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Annie). The era chosen being of particular significance, as Carroll's books, considered by many to be a sendup of Victorian rigidity, were written in 1865 - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and 1871 -Through the Looking Glass.

The well-dressed ladies and gentlemen occupying the box at the Palace Theater
serve as the show's Greek Chorus 

The period-appropriate setting of London's Victoria Palace Theater is the combined playground/performance space wherein Alice's surreal adventures in Wonderland are presented, vaudeville revue-style, in an eclectic and eccentric collage of song, dance, mime, poetry, and comedy. The amusing conceit of having Alice (whose traditional pinafore has been replaced by a pink bib jumper) as the unwitting star of an absurdist Music Hall revue neatly allows Swados' musicale to retain its deliberate theatrical structure. Meanwhile, the burlesque of Victorian-era shock and outrage enacted by the well-dressed members of the theater gallery in response to the show's musical anachronisms and hurlyburly format, is delightfully in keeping with the madness vs. sanity / reason vs. improbability themes of Lewis Carroll's book(s).

While Streep’s Alice remains consistently herself throughout (as much as a little girl who keeps growing and shrinking can be called consistent), members of the talented and versatile ensemble cast whimsically interpret the numerous denizens of Wonderland in imaginatively-staged numbers and skits that stubbornly refuse to recognize the laws of probability and time. The Dormouse sings country-western; Bill the Lizard is part of a barbershop sextet; the Lobster Quadrille is introduced by a Vegas-style lounge singer; the Caterpillar interrogation is an Indian raga; the Duchess’ baby jazz scats, à la Ella Fitzgerald; and Alice herself evokes the spirit of the 60s by serenading the Queen with a folk song.

Strumming her flamingo croquet mallet like a guitar, Streep does a killer Joan Baez impersonation

Given the combined elements of my general antipathy toward the source material, justified aversion to children's theater, and child-of-the-60s-related oversaturation anxiety regarding experimental theater of any kind; all signs point to Alice at the Palace being just the type of strenuously quirky entertainment that would have me scanning the room for exits and plotting escape routes in my head. But, miracle of miracles, Alice at the Palace stays on the bonus side of that gossamer-thin veil that separates the giddy lunacy of say, a Richard Lester movie or Monty Python skit, from the makes-you-want-to-set-your-hair-on-fire noxious cuteness of a Godspell or episode of The Monkees.
Maybe because the whimsy never feels arbitrary (even the illogical have a logic), or maybe because the cast of New York theater actors is so good they never once leave you unclear of what they are doing and where they are headed; but all the elements work seamlessly concert and create an imaginative, child's-eye-view of Wonderland unlike any I've ever seen*

*(In reviewing Alice in Concert, critic John Simon made reference to similarities to a theater of the absurd production of Alice in Wonderland mounted by Andre Gregory [of My Dinner with Andre fame] in 1970 though his Manhattan Project theater company.)

Since I’ve always felt that Alice in Wonderland was less an actual story than a series of bizarre conjoined encounters, Alice at the Palace resonated with me from the start because it appeared at last, someone (in this instance, the show’s creator Elizabeth Swados and director Emile Ardolino of Dirty Dancing and Sister Act), had lit upon a mode of adapting Carroll’s disjointed children’s verse complimentary to the book’s episodic, anarchic structure. 

In spite of the boundless possibilities presented by special effects, film has a literal quality about it that imposes a realism that can prove problematic when dealing with a fantasy centered on conceptual thinking, wordplay, and modes of perception. 

Certainly a device as theatrical as having a then 31-year-old Meryl Streep portray a 7 ½ -year-old could never work in even the most CGI heavy film unless, as in the Tom Hanks film, Big (1988), the discrepancy is noted. (Imagine The Wiz with 33-year-old Diana Ross playing Dorothy as an actual child!).

The willing suspension of disbelief and casual acceptance of visible artifice that’s part of the live theater experience makes the stage-bound gimmicks of Alice at the Palace (at varying intervals the camera places us onstage, in the wings, or in the audience) feel like a visual extension of Wonderland’s twisted, “Who am I now?” perspective. Similarly, the traditional vaudeville ritual of raising the curtain or lowering the scrim to signal the shift from one unconnected variety act to another is a cunning contrivance that actually brings a kind of disjointed order to Alice’s otherwise anecdotic odyssey.

Alice  receives her first crown

But best of all, something about the particulars of this production - from concept to execution - seized my imagination and touched my heart in precisely the ways Carroll's books proved incapable. For the first time, Alice’s adventures struck me as ultimately very moving and comprised of more than just a series of poetically expressed academic postulates. The details and performance subtleties of Streep, who uncannily captures the restless fidgety energy of a child, brings to the forefront Alice’s inner journey. A journey that takes her from feckless child who looks out at the world through smugly assumptive eyes, to one who learns to look for the beauty in everything, big and small. She also learns that "fabulous monsters" come in all forms, whether they be unicorns, scary Jabberwocks, or beautiful Red Queens. 

Debbie Allen as The Red Queen
"You may think that I'm an ogre, I am just the queen-next-door.
I simply have an ax instead of a cup of sugar."

The racial inclusion of the cast of Alice at the Palace stands in stark and refreshing contrast to the bafflingly all-white cast of Streep's latest musical venture, Rob Marshall's otherwise excellent adaptation of Stephens Sondheim's Into The Woods (2014). There's something Wonderlandish in the inherent contradiction of devotees of fairy tales and fantasy not having minds expansive enough to embrace inclusiveness.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I saw Alice at the Palace when it aired back in ’82, and for the longest time the only version I had was the fuzzy VHS copy I made (complete with James Garner, Mariette Hartley Polaroid commercials) that eventually warped and broke from overplaying. Seriously, I just fell in love with this show. I’ve seen it so often I know the score by heart. Anyhow, it was finally released on DVD in 2002, and while no manner of digital magic can remove that murky, low-tech, 80s-music-video look, it’s been nothing sort of great revisiting this show and enjoying a singing and dancing Meryl Streep two decades before she became the go-to diva of movie musicals.

The Mad Tea Party
Meryl Streep as Alice, Richard Cox (Cruising) as the Hatter, Michael Jeter (Picket Fences) as the Dormouse, and Mark Linn-Baker as the March Hare

If I've given the impression so far that Alice at the Palace as one of those sure-fire entertainments ranking among the most accessible of crowd-pleasers from Walt Disney or Rodgers & Hammerstein, let me correct that. Alice at the Palace is quite the opposite of a crowd-pleaser. In fact, it’s something of a hard sell.

As much as I’m blown away by Streep’s genius, the charm of the supporting cast, the cleverness of the music, and the poetic sweetness of the show itself (OK, it’s long been established that I’m a major softie, but the ending still moves me to waterworks after all these years); a good many people find the show singularly resistible. For years I've tried to get friends to watch it with me, but not a single person (including my partner whose tastes are similar to my own to the point of comedy) has been able to make it past more than the first half-hour.

Betty Aberlin (Lady Aberlin of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood)
vamps the Mock Turtle (Mark Linn-Baker) in full lounge singer mode. She also appears as Alice's sister, Edith. 

I don’t believe this has anything to do with it being too esoteric or impenetrable, it’s merely that such a non-traditional approach to such familiar material is bound not to be everyone’s Mad Tea Party. The droll and often lovely songs, incorporating a great deal of Lewis Carroll’s text, are not what you’d call hummable; the choreography by Graciela Daniele (The Pirates of Penzance, Everyone Says I Love You) is mostly of the “movement for non-dancers” stripe; and the avant-garde characterizations are apt to strike some as precious.

But, speaking entirely for myself and my own taste, one of the reasons Alice at the Palace is such a delight for me (and why I think so many other adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland have failed) is because an absurdist, nonsensical book cries out for an absurdist, nonsensical interpretation. Not the affected, eccentricity-without-substance of Tim Burton’s Alice, but a lopsided logic in tune with that of the book. Alice at the Palace makes Lewis Carroll's words and characters soar off the page and come to life.

Get the feeling they weren't really trying too hard with this TV Guide ad?
                                                                             via simplystreep.com

PERFORMANCES

There’s no getting past the fact that the miracle that is Meryl Streep is Alice at the Palace’s most valuable player. As excellent as the show and everyone else in the cast is, I can’t imagine it without her. At the time of this broadcast, Streep was just hitting her stride as a major star. She’d already won her first Emmy (Holocaust), first Oscar (Kramer vs Kramer), and two Golden Globes (Kramer vs Kramer and The French Lieutenant’s Woman). Indeed, a sure indicator of the scope of her success was the groundswell of critical and public backlash that began to build around this time. The complaint was that she was too technical, too serious, and too fond of accents.

Mark Linn-Baker is a standout in the multiple roles of White Rabbit, March Hare, Mock Turtle, and here, the White Knight.
Four years later he would find television success as the star of the sitcom Perfect Strangers

Meryl Streep was not only a serious actress, she was a HEAVY serious actress. No one went to a Meryl Streep movie expecting a good time. She was solid, she was thoughtful, and she was deep. And in every film you knew she was going to cry at least once...or twice...OK, a lot. I don’t know what the press reaction to Alice at the Palace when it aired, but as a Streep fan who saw her for the first time in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) and instantly fell in love, my reaction must have been on par with those 30s audiences who saw Garbo laugh in Ninotchka.

Those who only know Streep post-Mamma Mia have absolutely no idea what a shock it was to find out this deathly serious actress could be so funny! Silly, in fact...and she could sing, too! Hers is an animated, committed performance of near-constant surprises. She's extraordinary and a great deal of fun to watch (no surprise there). However, when taking in her loose, very physical performance, it helps to keep in mind she's playing a 7 ½ -year-old. You forget that and you're likely to think Streep has been taking a few hits off the Caterpillar's hookah.

Who Are You?
Alice meets the Caterpillar 

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Fan of musicals and fantasy that I am, these are a few of my favorite numbers:

The Queens' Examination/Alice's Dinner Party

Goodbye Feet
An ever-growing Alice has to bid her tootsies adieu

The Red Queen (Off With Their Heads)
Debbie Allen is electric as the temperamental queen.
The first episode of  her TV show, Fame, had aired just a week before.

What There Is
This beautiful duet by Streep and the remarkable Rodney Hudson is based on a poem by David Patchen. It's perhaps my favorite number in the entire show (cue the waterworks).

THE STUFF OF DREAMS
My enjoyment of Alice at the Palace inspired me to reread both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, and I've since come to have grown very fond of them both.

Queen Alice
Having grown from her adventures, Alice receives her second crown with more serenity 

The books feel somehow enriched by what I've gleaned from Elizabeth Swados' production, while my heightened awareness of the poetry in Carroll's words, the tenderness behind the intellect, the lessons in the parables, makes viewing the TV movie an even more rewarding experience than when first I discovered it so many years ago.

So, in effect, the opening sentence of this post is something of a misdirection and isn't really what it seems. Curious, that. 

A-l-i-c-e  P-l-e-a-s-a-n-c-e  L-i-d-d-e-l-l

L - LIFE WHAT IS IT BUT A
L - LIFE WHAT IS IT BUT A 
L - LIFE, WHAT IS IT BUT A DREAM?

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2015

HOMICIDAL 1961

Warning: Spoilers, spoilers, everywhere! Only read if you have seen the film!

The late William Castle, schlock horror showman extraordinaire (The Tingler, Strait-Jacket, The House on Haunted Hill), wasn't a bad director so much as an artless one. His pedestrian, TV-bland style of moviemaking—if the word "style" can be used to describe merely pointing the camera at whoever is speaking and making sure it's in focus—flattened and benumbed the performances of his actors and tended to drain the life out of the otherwise intriguingly bizarre narratives that were his latter-career métier. In fact, the sole mitigating factor distinguishing William Castle's films from the formulaic, workaday B-movie mediocrity of, say, Roger Corman was the sense that lurking somewhere beneath William Castle's bland, middle-class nice-guy countenance was someone with a perverse, almost John Waters-like predilection for the grotesque and downright weird.

Unpretentious in the extreme (none of Castle's films give the impression of aspiring to anything darker than the good-natured "Boo!" shouted in the dark), and with nary a subconscious demon to exorcise, Castle was a seemingly decent man who was more a gifted showman than deep-thinker. But he is also a very ambitious man. A man inarguably more overburdened with self-confidence than artistic vision. Castle built his career on the imitation/emulation of his idols, Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock. But Castle's crude, over-simplistic approach to his material revealed that he lacked the aesthetics and innate vulgarity necessary to be a truly interesting filmmaker.

As fate would have it, William Castle, through sheer huckster's bravado and none of the genius, actually managed to carve out a more prolific producing/directing career than former colleague Orson Welles (Castle served as associate producer on The Lady from Shanghai). And in a twist worthy of O. Henry, after years of dogging Alfred Hitchcock's footsteps like an admiring, less-gifted little brother, the public taste pendulum had swung to such a corkscrew angle that it was eventually Hitchcock who wound up being the copycat: borrowing William Castle's low-budget/heavy-hype style for 1960s Psycho.

And while it must be said that both Castle and Hitchcock are principally beholden to Henri-Georges Clouzot for his 1955 horror classic Les Diaboliques (whose final frame beseeches audience members not to be diabolical and reveal the film's surprise ending to friends), Psycho's then-groundbreaking "No one will be admitted after the film starts" screening gimmick was a page lifted straight out of the William Castle hoopla handbook.

Which brings us to Homicidal, a clear case of "Who's copying whom?"

Joan Marshall as Emily

Glenn Corbett as Karl Anderson

Patricia Breslin as Miriam Webster

Jean Arless as Warren Webster

Euginie Leontovich as Helga Swenson

Richard Rust as Jim Nesbitt

Alan Bruce as Dr. Jonas

William Castle had slogged away for years, churning out crime programmers and private eye 2^nd features before ultimately achieving moderate notoriety and success (if not respectability) in the Drive-In/Saturday Matinee horror circuit. Thus, it must have really burned his biscuits when a slumming Alfred Hitchcock came along with the critically and publicly well-received Psycho, fairly beating Castle at his own game and emerging with his A-list reputation not only intact but reinforced. The horror gauntlet had been thrown down. Castle had no choice but to prove that he was still a game player in a field he'd heretofore had all to himself.

Homicidal is basically Psycho-lite: all the sturm with none of the drang. It's a largely inept, ergo wildly entertaining homage/rip-off of only the most superficial of Psycho's exploitation-worthy plot points and identifiable Hitchcock templates. All served up with William Castle's trademark bargain-basement theatrics and nonexistent visual style.

A sure-footed director like Hitchcock can afford to string his audience along for nearly fifty minutes before unleashing the big shocker moment. William Castle, not so much.

After an intriguing but amateurishly-executed prologue set in 1948 wherein a little boy enters a playroom and swipes a doll from a little girl who's no Margaret O'Brien in the crying department, Homicidal jumps to the present-day and embarks on the film's one genuinely effective suspense setpiece, a protracted sequence in which an icy "Hitchcock blonde" buys a wedding ring, rents a hotel room, and offers a bellboy $2,000 to marry her on September 6^th, the wedding to be annulled immediately after. All this leading up to Homicidal's big shocker moment: a brutal knife attack. All probably quite shocking for 1961, but the best that can be said for it now is that it matches in unintentional laughs what Psycho's shower sequence provided in screams.

From setup to dénouement, the sequence clocks in at a brisk fifteen minutes, and, primed as we are with apprehension by the non-stop allusions to Psycho and our own piqued curiosity over the cryptic behavior of the woman, Homicidal begins on a fairly suspenseful high note. A note conspicuously lacking once the story proper kicks in.

After an extended stay in Denmark (!), odd-looking Warren Webster, the androgynous, slim-hipped heir with the $10 million overbite, returns to his family home in Solvang, California, to claim his due inheritance on the occasion of his fast-approaching 21^st birthday. 
In tow are Helga, Warren's childhood nurse and guardian following the death of his parents, now a mute invalid after suffering a stroke, and Emily, Helga's striking but equally odd-looking nurse of mysterious origin and whiplash mood swings. Emily, whose manner is as stiff and brittle as her severe blond flip hairdo with fringe bangs, shares an ambiguous relationship with Warren (Friend? Companion? Wife?), which rouses the genteel suspicions of his half-sister with the dictionary name Miriam Webster. Nurse Emily meanwhile tries to rouse more than just suspicions (if you get my cruder meaning) of Karl, Miriam's square, square-jawed sweetheart who at one time was Warren's childhood bully-for-pay playmate. (Fearing his son not masculine enough, Warren's screwball of a father paid Karl to engage Warren in fistfights).

Faster than you can say, "We all go a little mad sometimes," local outbreaks of assault, vandalism, and long-winded elder abuse alert authorities of a possible connection to the stabbing murder that opened the film. A link tied to Warren, his inheritance, and all those around him who may or may not be exactly as they seem.

Emily having a particularly trying day.

Written by William Castle's frequent collaborator Robb White (Macabre, 13 Ghosts), Homicidal has the makings of a reasonably decent thriller, its potential submarined by the inadequacy of its particulars. Happily, for all us lovers of camp, William Castle's carnival barker instincts as a director never allow the film's wan performances, risible dialog, and dry criminal procedural to distract from what are obviously his foremost points of interest: Homicidal's two gimmicky hooks. 
There's the gimmick he could openly promote: the one-minute "Fright Break," which stopped the film and allowed audience members too frightened to see the finale an opportunity to flee the theater and get their money back (but only after suffering the indignity of sitting in the "Coward's Corner" in the lobby). Then there's the "surprise" gimmick which raises the stakes of Psycho's cross-dressing twist, pulls a Christine Jorgensen reversal, and introduces movie audiences (a first?) to the "Ripped from today's headlines!" sensationalism of gender reassignment surgery.

William Castle assigned TV actress Joan Marshall the gender-neutral name of
Jean Arless to better conceal Homicidal's twist ending

William Castle was responsible for some of the oddest films to come out of the '50s and '60s. When they were silly, essentially one-note genre programmers like The Tingler, Castle's barely-above-average B-movie skills were a perfect match for the minimal demands of both the audience and the stories themselves. But as Paramount head of production, Robert Evans knew when he wrested Rosemary's Baby from Castle and handed it over to Roman Polanski; Castle's uninspired directing style is woefully ill-suited to anything requiring an understanding of things like editing, pacing, composition, the building of suspense, and the appropriate application of a music score. Homicidal is no Rosemary's Baby, but its compellingly preposterous plot is not without its appeal. That is, disregarding the obvious handicap of Robb White's terrible dialogue:

"Warren, what do you really know about her?"

"What do we really know about anybody?"

Homicidal cries out for a director with more creative ingenuity and a willingness to go to some of the darker corners of its twisted plot than Castle could muster.

I can't vouch for how all this played for '60s audiences (alarmingly, Time Magazine placed it on its list of Top 10 films of 1961). But behind some of the pleasure I take in laughing at Homicidal's excesses and liabilities, there's the nagging frustration born of an opportunity lost and potential squandered.

Emily's strong response to children and the topic of marriage is only vaguely addressed 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

If you're gonna rip off Psycho and need a gimmick to pull it off, you'd be hard-pressed to find one as effective as the Warren/Emily gambit. Why? Because it's a gimmick that works even when it doesn't work.

The first time I saw Homicidal was when it aired on one of those weekend "Creature Feature" horror movie TV programs in my early teens. I was unfamiliar with the plot then, but right from the start, one thing stood out: there was something really strange about the actors playing Emily and Warren. Emily seemed carved out of wood, so angular were her striking features. And what with her stilted manner of speech and rigid carriage, she came across like some alien being trying to approximate human behavior. (Actress Joanna Frank achieved a similar quality when she played a queen bee in human form in "Zzzz," my absolute favorite episode of the TV program The Outer Limits).

Something about Miriam brings out the full-throttle biotch in Emily

Warren was downright eerie with his odd, immobile features and that robotic, disembodied dubbed voice. I knew there was something "off" about this pair and never once thought the roles were played by different actors. But having grown up on Some Like it Hot, Uncle Miltie, and a particularly disturbing episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour titled The Unlocked Window, I immediately assumed female impersonation was the gimmick and that Warren was an actor playing a dual role. I was genuinely surprised to learn that it was a woman engaged in the cross-dressing.

The exceptional thing about Joan Marshall—and you'll never convince me of this being an intentional acting choice on her part—is that whether dressed as a man or woman, what's compelling about her is that she never comes across as entirely "human" whatever the gender. Hers is such a disorienting, androgynous presence; she (and the brilliant work of makeup artist Ben Lane) single-handedly imbue Homicidal with the surreal, creepy vibe William Castle nearly buries under his bromidic guidance.

(As further proof of the enduring effectiveness of this gambit, as recently as a year ago, my partner watched Homicidal for the first time, and he too thought it was a male actor playing the roles of Warren and Emily.)

PERFORMANCES

Actress Joan Marshall is absolutely the best thing about Homicidal and the only reason I can still watch the film. Her campy performance may not be "good" by conventional standards (we're talking a William Castle film here), but in every aspect, it is oh, so "right."

In a cast of yawn-inducingly ordinary actors giving by-the-numbers performances, Marshall comes off as an arch drag queen in her Emily persona (she's like a proto-Coco Peru), and her Warren reminds me of Ron Reagan Jr. (only with charisma). 

I'd read somewhere that Raquel Welch had wanted to play both Myra and Myron in Myra Breckinridge, and actress Sally Kellerman sought the same in the stage version of Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Interesting ideas that make me think about how those roles rely on a degree of inflexible gender presentation. I remember many years ago when I saw Julie Andrews in Victor, Victoria, and came away thinking she was never very convincing to me as a man. Part of this was due to Andrews' limited range, to be sure. But it also had to do with the stereotypical gender signifiers I came to the movie with. I never asked myself, "What is a man SUPPOSED to look like?"...ironically, a question built into the film's themes. 

In Homicidal, Marshall may make a weird-looking man. But for the purpose of the movie's plot (the characters in the film have to unquestioningly accept her as a male), her impersonation is wholly successful, as she pretty much looks like any member of your average '80s punk band.

Handsome Glenn Corbett, in Homicidal's equivalent of the John Gavin role in Psycho, isn't given an opportunity to make much of an impression. Perhaps his photo from his early days as a physique model (circa 1955) will help to rectify that.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
What a difference a year makes. Psycho came out in 1960, and fast on its heels in 1961 came Homicidal. There's always been a thin line between homage, inspired-by, borrowed from, and just plain ripped-off, but Homicidal owes so much to Psycho, were the film made today, Castle would likely have to split his profits with Hitchcock. Here are a few of the most glaring similarities. Fittingly, the Psycho images are first.

                                                         Location Identification

The Fugitive Kind: Janet Leigh and Joan Marshall on the lam

Psycho's Laurene Tuttle & John McIntire in roles (and robes) similar to those later 

occupied by James Westerfield and Hope Summers 

Martin Balsam and Patricia Breslin apprehensively climb the stairs

                                   

John Gavin unmasks and subdues Anthony Perkins,
Alan Bruce performs the same duties for Joan Marshall

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

I don't know whether William Castle intended to mask his shortcomings as a director behind distracting gimmicks and promotional ploys or merely use those devices to make a name for himself as an independent filmmaker during a time when the major studios dominated the marketplace. Whichever the reason, the fact remains that Castle succeeded—limitations and all—where many more talented and better-financed directors failed: he made entertaining movies and movies that endured. My personal favorites, Strait-Jacket, The Tingler, I Saw What You Did, and Homicidal, are more innocent than ominous. But they guarantee viewers a good time at the movies...an ironic good time, perhaps, but a good time nonetheless. 

Halloweenlove.com

BONUS MATERIAL:

Joan Marshall appeared on many TV shows (many available on YouTube) before making her "debut" as Jean Arless in Homicidal. She married director Hal Ashby (Being There, Harold & Maude) in 1970. Both she and William Castle appear in Ashby's 1975 film, Shampoo, rumored to be based, at least in part, on aspects of her life (for example, Tony Bill's character is said to be based on her brother). Although their marriage was troubled, Marshall remained married to Ashby until his death in 1988. She passed away in 1992.

Walking past a seated Warren Beatty, Joan Marshall as she appears in 1975's Shampoo. 

Joan Marshall stars in this 1964 unaired pilot for The Munsters. Network execs thought Marshall's Phoebe Minster (changed to Lily Munster when cast with Yvonne De Carlo) bore too close a resemblance to The Addams Family's Morticia.

This is The Fright Break! You hear that sound? It's the sound of a heartbeat. A frightened, terrified heart. Is it beating faster than your heart or slower? This heart is going to beat for another twenty-five seconds to allow anyone to leave this theater who is too frightened to see the end of the picture. Ten seconds more and we go into the house! It's now or never!
Five..four... You're a brave audience!

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009 - 2015