Batmania - Rat Pfink A Boo Boo!

If perchance you are a Batman fan and have not seen Rat Pfink a Boo Boo from 1966, you have a rustic gem yet to discover. This is a movie by low-budget schlock master Ray Dennis Steckler and weirdly it's at times his most restrained and suspenseful movie and also his most zany and hilarious. That's simply because we have two movies in one here. It begins as a restrained movie of true suspense with a beautiful woman being harassed and attacked by three truly repugnant thugs. This trio of villains select their next victim by random from the phone book and begin a campaign of terror by following and confronting their unsuspecting target. But when after several rather tense encounters they do finally kidnap her the movie switches gears in a stunning fashion.

There had been no indication at all that the woman's boyfriend and her gardener were in fact a somewhat low-rent dynamic duo called "Rat Pfink" and his pal "Boo Boo". Their thrift shop homemade costumes notwithstanding, they then hop in a motorcycle with a sidecar and follow the baddies to rescue the damsel in distress and the movie gets weirder and weirder from that point on. 

To call Rat Pfink and Boo Boo (or its official title of Rat Pfink a Boo Boo -- Steckler declared it was not a mistake) a good movie is a crime against cinema. But to hail this raunchy jaunt as an entertaining movie is a totally on the mark. Batmania fans will revel in the obvious homage to the actual "Dynamic Duo" who were dominating pop culture for a time in the late 60's and there are many other aspects of the movie that make it a hoot. Bob Burns, longtime sci-fi and horror fan and collector and defacto inheritor of the mantle once worn by Forry Ackerman is in this flick in his ape costume called "Kogar". He shows up in the riotous finale when the movie takes another wide swing into yet another direction. 

This movie was made over a very long time to make, essentially when Steckler had the money to continue and that explains the changes in some characters both physically and also suggests why the movie veers off course so stunningly at times. The movie stars Steckler's wife Carolyn Brandt as "Cee Bee Beaumont" the damsel and Ron Haydock (under the name "Vin Saxon") as "Rat Pfink" and the boyfriend. Haydock was a comic book fan contributing to a number of fanzines in his time and was also an early rock and roll singer with a few minor tunes to his credit. He sings four numbers in this movie. "Boo Boo" is played by Titus Moede, a Steckler regular who actually went on to have a tiny career in regular material. The odious and menacing "Chain Gang" features a few Steckler regulars as well with Mike Kannon as "Hammer" and James Bowie as "Benjie", and one-timer George Caldwell as "Linc". 

If you're a fan of Steckler's work than you've seen Rat Pfink a Boo Boo as it's one of his most famous alongside the psychotronic hit The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies. But unlike that movie which had a small budget, this one has almost no budget being produced out of Steckler's pocket for the most part with the help of his friends. It's not only a noirish black and white film but a silent movie as well, since Steckler always shot his movies silently (all the equipment he could usually afford) and added sound later. In this wacky thing that works to its benefit giving it a fun shlocky feel like a badly dubbed foreign film. If you see no other Steckler movie I can sure understand that, but everyone who has ever heard of Batman needs to see this one. 

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Death, Drugs, And Ray Dennis Steckler!

I'm fascinated by Ray Dennis Steckler in the same way I'm fascinated by Ed Wood. Both were maverick filmmakers who operated on shoestring budgets (or no budgets sometimes) and produced a pretty ample catalogue of movies. What makes them kindred directors is not the cheapness of their movies necessarily, but the downright sincerity of their efforts. They weren't out to make bad movies necessarily, unlike other cheapo directors like Jerry Warren and Larry Buchanan, but were thinking of themselves of as auteurs ignored by the movie powers, even cast aside. Both Steckler and Wood ended up making porn flicks to earn their daily loaf. Unlike Wood though, we have Steckler explaining his movies at length in sometimes fascinating commentaries that reveal the secrets of his filmmaking and sometimes uncover the scars in his soul as a result of his lack of financial success in Hollywood. He says again and again and again that his complaints are not "sour grapes" but clearly they are just that. In this post I want to take a quick glance at four of Steckler's later films, some made simultaneously with his porno efforts. 

The first and perhaps most accomplished relatively speaking is Body Fever, which is a film noir effort in color made on the cheap and using that to best effect. It features Steckler's wife Carolyn Brandt at the time, a leggy actress who almost exclusively appeared in her hubby's movies. She's pretty and at times when shot correctly striking, but her acting is pretty average. The real standout in this movie about a detective and a jewel thief evading gangsters and finding love is Gary Kent, a Hollywood stuntman of some reputation who does a great job as a pretty nasty thug in this movie. Kent is the guy who inspired the Brad Pitt stuntman character in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and it's easy to see how. His body is lithe and you can tell this is a guy who can handle himself. This movie features some of the same sets (in Steckler's basement of all places) used in the porn flick Synthia the Devil Doll. 

Blood Shack is one of the most curious flicks I've ever seen. It's shot silent with a modicum of sound added in after the fact to marginal effect. It's setting is the real "star" of this movie, as rundown a piece of property as you're likely to find, a house that seems open to elements most of the time. Supposedly this is a haunted house, haunted by an Indian spirit called "The Chooper". That in fact is an alternate title for this movie and the one I prefer just for its weirdness. The title comes from an earlier Steckler movie The Lemon Grove Kids and a couple of minor characters from space called "Choopers". One of those costumes is re-used here and that's enough apparently for Steckler. Once again Carolyn Brandt is on hand as well as longtime ally Ray Haydock, a rockabilly singer and comic book writer among other things. Haydock would be killed in a tragic car accident soon after this movie was completed alas. The Chooper kills several people in the flick with minor gore and one of the grossest mattresses in film history. All that is crummy about Steckler movies is on display and all that is wonderful is there too. This 1971 movie was made at the same time as a porn flicked called Hillbilly Sex Clan, which shares the set as well as at least one actor from Blood Shack. 

The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Skid Row Slasher is a Steckler movie from his later period. long after he'd made many many porn movies, many set in and around Las Vegas. Steckler had moved there after his divorce from Brandt but that doesn't stop her from appearing for a final time for Steckler in this weird weird slip of cinema. I'm not spoiling it much by saying that Carolyn Brandt plays a bookstore owner with a compulsion to stab hobos and bums. Also on hand is an actor named Pierre Agostini who is blessed with a rugged face that does him great service in this movie in which he strangles many many women over and over. These two killers circle one another in a bizarre silent dance of  psychotic co-dependence and finally have it out. This movie is silent and that adds to the strangeness of it, but it does limit its narrative possibilities. He re-uses footage from one of his porn films in this one called Sex Rink. 

In 1986 Steckler makes another movie and he revives the Hollywood Strangler and moves him to Las Vegas. In a strange effort to create something of continuity in his movies all of Steckler's psychos share the last name "Click", first used in The Thrill Killers many years before. The Las Vegas Serial Killer is the least watchable of these movies, because the repetition of the other Strangler flick is repeated but without the relative complexity of the other psycho. Neither of these movies is really that good, but the other is slightly better. We follow to lame thieves this time when we're not watching Agostini strangle some unsuspecting woman. The movie rambles around Las Vegas and like many of Steckler's movies does a pretty decent job of documenting the real world at that time. The Vegas in this movie is long gone, and there is a wisp of nostalgia from glimpses of those old casinos. 

Unless like me you have a fascination with bad movies I cannot recommend these flicks, but I do say you will earn a lot about Ray Dennis Steckler from listening to his sometimes bizarre commentaries. It's often what he doesn't say that is remarkable, ignoring as if it didn't exist his porn career. In fact I've not mentioned that Steckler doesn't use his real name as director any of these flicks, but rather the name  "Wolfgang Schmidt" He has other names for his porn flicks such as "Cindy Lou Sutters" and "Sven Christian" or "Harry Nixon", so he seems to think that's enough that folks won't find out about his other career. One thing that comes clear listening to Steckler talk about and over his old flims is that he never stopped loving his first wife, he is completely besotted with her. I feel sorry for his second wife as she barely rates a mention though being in the last movie in fact.  Steckler died in 2009, but his movies live on in a way and he did find the immortality he sought as a Hollywood director...sort of.

Note: I have not yet dealt with one of Stecker's most famous movies -- Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, but I hope to do so later.  

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The Lemon Grove Kids Meet The Monsters!

The Lemon Grove Kids Meet The Monsters is not really a movie in the sense that you'd expect. It's actually comprised of three half-hour shows featuring different versions of Ray Steckler's Lemon Grove Kids. The Lemon Grove Kids are an homage to the East End Kids who became The Bowery Boys. Steckler is a fan of classic movies as is shown in most of his mainstream work. The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies is his attempt to make a horror movie and weirdly a musical at the same time. The Thrill Killers was a straightforward noir suspense flick but was marketed later as horror when the name was changed to  Maniacs on the Loose. The Lemon Grove Kids shorts are comedies through and through, though blended with a hardy helping of sci-fi to stiffen the brew. 

The name Lemon Grove is selected because that's where Steckler and his family lived when they were making these little movies. In the first one titled The Lemon Grove Kids we meet the gang led by Slug with a wide array of bizarre characters in the gang, none more than Gopher played by Steckler himself. Slug was an homage to Leo Gorcey's "Slip" who led the gang with pugnacious efficiency and Gopher was a tribute to Huntz Hall as "Sach" the most moronic of the gang of morons. This little movie shows a showdown between the Lemon Grove Gang and the East Lemon Grove Gang in the form of a race which is infiltrated by gangsters who have bet heavily on the outcome. There is a wide range of zany gags with pratfalls being nigh endless. At end though the movie switches gears and Gopher encounters a Mummy and a blonde chick who menace him and at the same time the audience itself as mummies invade the theater. Later still Gopher chances upon a scene from Rat Pfink A Boo Boo (more on this movie next week) and a whole club of 8-milimeter movie afficianados. 

The second show is if anything even weirder with a somewhat different gang of Lemon Grove Kids working to help out a neighbor with his yardwork and landscaping. The neighbor was played by Colman Francis, a low-budget moviemaker himself and director of The Beast of Yucca Flats. (He'd also played a small part in the first Lemon Grove show as a gangster.) While the kids are working they are steadily kidnapped by denizens of a spaceship. The aliens are a Green Grasshopper, a Vampire Lady, and two costumed critters called "Choopers". There are also three witches, but at some point the sheer volume of weird almost collapses this one, though the energy never drops. 

The third show is much more modest with the Lemon Grove Kids being mostly Steckler's actual kids led by a folk singer. They help C.B Beaumont (more on her next week as well.) played by Carolyn Brand (who also was the Vampire Lady in the second flick). There's a fortune teller and two gangsters who plot to kidnap Beaumont, an actress they think they can demand a hefty ransom for. It's a wild ride but ultimately less successful than the other two due to its more modest aspirations. 

All three are weird, the second winning that contest. The best one is the first which cleaves most closely the the classic Bowery Boys model with some added spice. I enjoy these and being only a half hour each they don't wear out their welcome as Steckler movies sometimes can do. 

Next time it's some of Ray Dennis Steckler's most peculiar and darkest films. 

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The Thrill Killers!

The Thrill Killers is far and away Ray Dennis Steckler's most normal movie, but that being said it still ain't all that normal. It's a noir thriller as such as shot on black and white it is totally appropriate both in style and content. The movie is filled with actors and "actors" who are a regular part of Steckler's team in these 60's flicks. Steckler often brings up John Ford, who famously used a steady cast in movie after movie and since Steckler is often relying on friends and amateurs to fill out the parts in his movies, many familiar faces show up time and again. The most common is his wife of ten years Carolyn Brand who is in most all his movies but like as not gets killed rather early because she carries so many other duties behind the scenes in these Steckler epics. 

One new face of sorts in this one is Liz Renay, a bombshell celebrity slash actress who shows up in a bunch of these low budget affairs. Apparently they waited until she got out of stir to make this particular movie. This is also the first time that Steckler worked with Ron Haydock who appears under the name "Lonnie Lord". Haydock was a fascinating chap in his own right who was a wannabe rock star and even wrote novels (admittedly of the porn variety) and comics (Warren magazine's Creepy). More on Haydock next time. 

This movie is about a psycho killer named Mort "Mad Dog" Click (played by "Cash Flagg" who is actually Steckler himself) who we see on a mini rampage and then we encounter three escaped nutters who are killers themselves, one being Mad Dog's  brother. They kill some folks and then threaten others, including wannabe actor Joe Saxon who must face reality to combat this bizarre threat. Lots of other Steckler regulars show up such as Erina Enyo, Atlas King, Jim Bowie and Titus Moede. 

This movie is remarkable in that it pretty much stays within the guidelines of one genre, though it does adopt something of a western feel in the final chase sequences. Steckler seemed to get bored with his own projects and often his movies switch up in the middle or start out being multiple things, which can make then hilarious and entertaining in a strange way, but not really good in a traditional sense. This one gets the closes to being a regular movie that I've seen from him. 

But like his previous movie, this one too ended up with a William Castle-like gimmick and after a color introduction about hypnotism there is a spinning wheel that signals that "maniacs" will soon be "on the loose" in the theater. The movie was apparently retitled The Maniacs are Loose! at some point. 

The next Steckler movie is a really unusual outing. It's called The Lemon Grove Kids Meet The Monsters and we encounter this oddity next time. 

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The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?

I have long been a fan of 50's low-budget director Ed Wood, attracted to his often tawdry flickers because of the commitment he seemed to have to making of them. He was a schlock director but he was an earnest one and that makes a enormous difference in the final analysis as a really good "bad movie" requires earnest and devoted filmmaking. You cannot make a really excellent "bad movie" on purpose. Those same feeling arise when I came across the filmography of 60's director Ray Dennis Steckler. He made some heroically awful movies, but he worked to make them good, or at least as good as he could at the time with the few dollars at hand. 

I'd like to take a look at some of Steckler's movies this month and I begin with the movie he's most famous for -- The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!? As the poster says this is the "first monster musical" but sadly it's a lame monster movie and miserable musical, but when you blend these two together you get an awfully entertaining flick which succeeds despites its manifest deficiencies. The plot is simple enough -- a no-account young man woos a lovely young woman in defiance of her Mother's desires and along with his best buddy takes her to the carnival where they encounter a fortune teller who hypnotizes him into becoming a brutal and deadly slasher. As this plot tumbles out with Steckler in the lead role, we are periodically entertained by full-blown, but poorly rehearsed musical production numbers that stop the story but not the unintentional entertainment. 

The particular dvd that I used to enjoy this classic bad movie featured both a commentary by Steckler himself as well as one by Joe Bob Briggs. The first gave lots of information and excuses about the production and the second mocked it openly quite a bit, but that's the risk a creator always runs. Steckler has long since passed away in 2009, but he seems to have been a man with many demons about his career and how it turned out. He is at once properly proud of the many low-budget movies he actually got made, no small feat, but at the same time he lashes out at more typical lavish productions while the same time claiming no "sour grapes" are involved. It rings hollow alas and I feel for his sense of having had a chance at a big career akin to Orson Welles (at least in his imagination) rather than the one he ended up with, which was reduced to making porn movies in Las Vegas while operating a video store or two. 

Also there's the matter of his wife, the fetching Carolyn Brandt who stars in many if not most of his movies and who he had two children with. Despite remarrying and having two more kids, it's all too clear from Steckler's endless admiration of Brandt that he always was in love with her. I feel rather sorry for his second wife as he tallies up the virtues of his first over and over again. As for Steckler himself, it was under the name "Cash Flagg" that he starred in his self-made flicks. His career as a cameraman seems to have stalled in Hollywood at about the time was making these films and one gets the sense from Steckler that he thinks it might be a result of his pushing for the inclusion of blacks into his union. That's never stated, but merely suggested a few times. 

Steckler was also a fan of William Castle apparently as he converted this movie into a travelling live show of sorts. At a point in the movie when the "zombies" attack, actual people in zombie outfits would rush into movie crowds including often Steckler himself. This gimmick made the movie viable for many years as an ongoing concern, especially since Steckler and company would change the title so that unwary moviegoers wouldn't realize they'd seen it before. One such title was Teenage Psycho Meets Bloody Mary. 

Whatever the case, this is a humdinger of a movie. It is full of indifferent musical numbers and singers with more vigor than talent, but that might well be said of the director himself. Steckler is a guy who could make a decent movie as we'll seen next time with his next movie title The Thrill Killers.

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Summer Fun!

The summer is in full swing and to celebrate this hot sticky time of the year (I'm an Autumn guy myself) I'd like to stay inside next to the refreshing air conditioner and read comic books. (I'd be doing that pretty much anytime of year, but it feels like an oasis this time of year.) After some heavy theme months, I'm looking to keep it a bit looser here for the month and read a variety of things, some I've read many times before and some for the very first time. 

On the docket is one of the great creations in the whole history of the form -- Joe Kubert's Tor. Created by Kubert when he and Norman Maurier were trying to ignite things at St. Johns Comics in the 1950's Tor has had a much longer life than the 3-D craze that defined it in its earliest days. 

And in the returning "The Sunday Funnies" spot, I will be taking at pleasant read of Roy Crane's classic full-color adventure series Captain Easy - Soldier of Fortune. 

I'll be taking another savory glimpse of some old favorites here at the Dojo such as Charlton's E-Man and The Rocketeer from Pacific and Dark Horse among others. 

I looking forward to a number of highly distinctive classics by creators noted for their particular and highly crafted way of approaching the comic book page. 

Look for the initiation of a new regular feature called "Crime Alley" which will focus on those comics having to do with hardboiled dicks and other gumshoe types. 

And yet another ongoing feature will be "Girl Fridays" which I hope will please those in the Dojo audience who like a bit of cheesecake now and again to enrich their diets. 

And I've got a classic lined up for "Showcase Corner". Metamorpho  is book that simmer in that Silver Age goodness DC was so very good at.

I want to take a belated look at some of those wonky Ray Dennis Steckler movies too. All this perhaps and whatever else occurs to me if I have time, but one I do know is that's it's cool to read comics and in July that's literally so. 

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Rat Pfink A Boo Boo!