Deathsport (Nicholas Niciphor & Allan Arkush, 1978)

The second Roger Corman-produced post-apocalyptic vehicle-based movie about a deadly sporting event starring David Carradine (and the third involving vehicular insanity if you include the non-post-apocalyptic Cannonball!), Deathsport was meant to follow up on the success and popularity of Death Race 2000 but turned into an enormous fiasco for almost everyone involved, though it's still an enjoyable if not particularly distinguished b-movie. The behind-the-scenes drama involved Roger Corman trying to convince David Carradine not to do the movie, Carradine regretting not taking Corman's advice, a chaotic atmosphere on set involving much drug and alcohol abuse, an inexperienced director leaving the movie twice (he quit, came back, and then got fired), Corman vet Allan Arkush coming in to save the day twice, and physical altercations between director and actors with vicious but contradictory he-said/he-said accounts of what went down from Nicholas Niciphor and Carradine.

Carradine signed a five-picture deal with Roger Corman in 1975, beginning with Death Race 2000 (written about on this site a few months ago). He followed it up for Corman with the aforementioned cross-country road race movie Cannonball! (not to be confused with The Cannonball Run) and moonshinersploitation comedy Thunder and Lightning. In the meantime, the popularity of Death Race 2000 and the Kung Fu TV series put Carradine back on the radar of Hollywood casting agents and major international productions, and he snagged the lead in Hal Ashby's Woody Guthrie film Bound for Glory (one of the only good music biopics) and Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg (one of Bergman's only English-language films).

Back on the A-list or at least comfortably near it, Carradine stayed loyal to Roger Corman and their five-movie deal and agreed to play the lead in Deathsport. Corman tried to talk him out of it, telling him to wait for something better, but Carradine insisted, figuring a similar concept to Death Race 2000 could cross over from drive-ins to mainstream audiences the way that movie had. He almost immediately regretted the decision, saying the movie killed his career momentum and stuck him in b-movies and episodic television for most of the rest of his working life, though some of that stuff was great, especially The Long Riders, Q: The Winged Serpent, and his Hollywood comeback in the Kill Bill movies.

Deathsport was a thorn in Corman's side almost from the beginning. Corman's veteran screenwriting collaborator Charles B. Griffith took a crack at it first, but Corman didn't like the results and thought it was a rare Griffith dud. So did most of the directors in the Corman stable, who turned it down one after another, including Arkush (co-director of Hollywood Boulevard and director of Rock'n'Roll High School, Heartbeeps, Get Crazy, Caddyshack II, and at least one episode of at least half the network TV shows from the '80s to the 2010s). Corman got recent USC film school graduate Nicholas Niciphor to completely rewrite the movie. Niciphor had just written the screenplay for the indie drama Our Winning Season, an early film from Stepfather director Joseph Ruben that had done well. That film's producer, Joe Roth (later a major studio executive), told Corman he should let Niciphor direct Deathsport because he'd seen his USC student films and thought the kid had the goods. Corman gave him a shot, which turned into a disaster.

According to Niciphor, he walked into a hostile, drug-addled set with a perpetually stoned Carradine and a perpetually drunk and/or coked-up Claudia Jennings who wouldn't stop giving him the business. He claims Carradine was also physically abusive, roughing him up on multiple occasions. Carradine admits to the heavy drug use on set from both him and Jennings but says that Niciphor was erratic, prone to tantrums, and physically and emotionally abusive to Jennings. When he saw Niciphor hit Jennings, he went ballistic and kicked Niciphor's ass. Carradine's version of events is mostly backed up by Deathsport cinematographer Gary Graver (a lifelong Orson Welles collaborator and close friend who took jobs on b-movies and porn films to scrape up some cash for Welles' projects), who emphasized that Niciphor was especially mean to Jennings, and Arkush, who says Jennings was very coked-up but that Niciphor didn't know what he was doing and behaved inconsistently. Graver also says he thinks Niciphor had untreated PTSD from Vietnam and that the director would often become obsessed with relating the grisliest details of his war experiences. We don't have Jennings' point of view because she sadly died in a car accident in 1979 at the age of 29. Whatever the truth, this was a majorly dysfunctional set.

Corman mostly kept his distance from the on-set drama but felt that the inexperienced Niciphor was struggling to handle the action scenes. When an exasperated Niciphor quit near the end of the shooting schedule, Arkush stepped in. Niciphor came back and agreed to finish the film on the condition he didn't have to direct any Carradine scenes, but the problems persisted and he was fired, with Arkush again stepping in for reshoots as well as a re-edit. Corman told him to salvage the film by shooting some exciting motorcycle chases, even more nudity, and several explosions. Arkush delivered the goods. The usually tight-pursed Corman really let him go wild with the pyro, and the film has a comically awesome number of major explosions. Niciphor never directed again (he's credited on this film under the fake name Henry Suso), but he continued to work as a screenwriter.

Despite all this behind-the-scenes insanity, what's on screen is a pretty standard Roger Corman b-movie. We have a post-apocalyptic wasteland in a future "one thousand years from tomorrow" where most of humanity and our institutions and technology have disappeared. A handful of independent city-states still exist but what lies between is mostly a barren desert, inhabited by cave-dwelling cannibal mutants. A nomadic, scantily clad tribe of nomadic guides with mild psychic healing and telepathic powers make their living by safely guiding people from one city-state to another. Two of these guides are Kaz Oshay (Carradine) and Deneer (Gator Bait star and Playboy Playmate Jennings). The mad dictator of one of the city-states, Lord Zirpola (David McLean), has replaced capital punishment with deathsport, a battle to the death in an explosives-laden outdoor stadium with the prisoners on souped-up motorbikes called death machines. If you kill your opponent, your criminal record is wiped and you go free.

Lord Zirpola's right-hand man is Ankar Moor (Richard Lynch, especially memorable in The Seven-Ups, God Told Me To, and Bad Dreams). Zirpola has the wild idea to kidnap all the guides and make them fight the prisoners in the deathsport events. This is an insane move, but Ankar is one hundred percent on board because he got his ass kicked by Oshay's mother several years ago and wants revenge. Ankar also wants Lord Zirpola's job. After a valiant battle with Zirpola's men where he dispatches most of them with these awesome devices that instantly vaporize people, usually mid-scream (we get a lot of hilarious interrupted screams), Oshay is captured and imprisoned. Deneer has already been captured, too. Zirpola even throws his doctor, Dr. Karl (William Smithers), in a cell after the doc tells him he has a previously unknown brain disease caused by excessive radiation and needs to step down as leader. Dr. Karl's son Marcus (Will Walker), who was being guided by Deneer when she was taken, returns to save his dad. I just watched Will Walker the previous Friday in Paul Schrader's Hardcore, and here he is again on a second consecutive Friday. You can't make this stuff up.

After a harrowing imprisonment, torture (including nude electric shock treatment for the women; the dudes get to keep wearing their loincloths), a deathsport game, and a daring escape, Oshay, Deneer, Dr. Karl, and Marcus take off across the desert, with Ankar and his boys in pursuit. The cannibal mutants also get in on the action. More motorcycle chases, nudity, explosions, decapitations, tender moments, cannibalism, laser blasting, and sword fighting ensue. It's all pretty silly and pretty fun.

With Arkush's help, Deathsport made it past the finish line. It's not one of the great Corman movies, but it's not turgid slop. If you like the drive-in b-movie experience, you'll probably find something to like here, but it's nothing to rearrange your schedule for if you have a great movie to watch. I can be an arty son-of-a-bitch, but I also like shit blowing up real good, motorcycles driving real fast, decapitated heads rolling, and sexy ladies, so I can never dismiss Deathsport entirely. It's no Death Race 2000, but, hey, it's alright.

One last wild bit of trivia for my fellow music fanatics. The film's score by Andy Stein is played on a bunch of bleeping and blooping synths by cult avant-garde composer (and member of Iggy and the Stooges on the final leg of the Raw Power tour) "Blue" Gene Tyranny and on guitar by Jerry Garcia. I would love to know the story behind the music. The score is pretty bonkers and one of the movie's highlights.

Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939)

Son of Frankenstein, the third Universal Studios Frankenstein movie, was the first without the magic touch of James Whale. Whale, one of the best filmmakers of the first Hollywood golden age, directed four of the greatest horror movies of the 1930s (Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man, and Bride of Frankenstein) but, deciding that he couldn't top what he'd already done, left horror behind for the remainder of his career, turning his focus to musicals, war movies, romantic comedies, and adventure movies.

Fortunately, Frankenstein ended up in the capable hands of director Rowland V. Lee and a stacked cast, including Basil Rathbone, Lionel Atwill, Bela Lugosi, and a returning Boris Karloff in his last appearance as Frankenstein's monster. Lee and screenwriter Wyllis Cooper, instead of trying to mimic Whale's style and tone (a fool's errand), decided to ignore the one-of-a-kind Bride of Frankenstein altogether and create a direct sequel to the first film (and Mary Shelley's novel). Lee also chose to place the action on dramatically stylized German Expressionist-influenced sets that call to mind some of the silent film classics like Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Waxworks, giving this version of Frankenstein a truly unique look.

Freed up from trying to imitate Whale, Lee creates a surprisingly complex, atmospheric, tragic tale with moments of silliness and camp, particularly with Atwill's and Rathbone's characters, who were memorably parodied in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein, a pastiche of the first three Frankenstein movies that draws heavily from this installment. Though reputationally a footnote to Whale's two Frankenstein movies and Brooks' parody, Son of Frankenstein is a pretty damn good movie in its own right and deserves to be seen on its own terms.

The longest Universal monster movie at 99 minutes, Son of Frankenstein begins with Frankenstein's son, Baron Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone, most famous for playing Sherlock Holmes), inheriting the castle, laboratory, and servants of his late father. Wolf, a British doctor living in the United States with his cosmopolitan American wife Elsa (Josephine Hutchinson) and their inexplicably Southern-accented son Peter (Donnie Dunagan, a tap-dancing child prodigy who was born in San Antonio and raised in Memphis, so maybe not that inexplicable; he later became the voice of Bambi in the Disney movie and spent his adult post-showbiz life as a career Marine, eventually working in counterintelligence) decide to move to the castle permanently, angering and frightening the villagers, who thought they were finally free of these damn Frankensteins and their crazy damn experiments. A series of mysterious deaths in the village has also given rise to the rumor that the monster is still alive, making the anti-Frankenstein sentiment even more pronounced.

Arriving at Castle Frankenstein in the middle of a suitably gothic thunderstorm, the Frankensteins get the cold shoulder from the villagers but a considerably warmer one from the castle servants. Wolf and Peter dig the castle, but Elsa gets bad vibes almost immediately and doesn't seem too enamored of its wacky German Expressionist architecture. Meanwhile, a creepy bearded dude named Ygor (Bela Lugosi) is skulking around the premises and spying on the family.

Also skulking around, albeit with a much friendlier presentation, is police inspector Krogh (Lionel Atwill), who tells the Frankensteins that he's here to serve and protect the family while secretly harboring suspicions that Wolf is up to the same shenanigans as dear old dad. Krogh has an artificial right arm since his biological arm was ripped off by Frankenstein's monster when he was a kid. His stiff movements adjusting his arm and monocle are parodied by Kenneth Mars in Young Frankenstein, but it's almost a parody of a parody, with Atwill playing the movements straight-facedly but with deliberate physical comedy.

The next morning, after the storm has subsided, Wolf checks out his father's old laboratory, which is missing a roof, cluttered with rubble, and adjacent to a bubbling hot sulfur pit, but otherwise in surprisingly great shape. Ygor, suspicious of the stranger, attempts to smush Wolf with a heavy stone, but Wolf is too quick and too armed with a rifle for Ygor to succeed. After Ygor finds out the man is Frankenstein's son, he ushers him into a secret underground lair where the body of the monster (Boris Karloff) is still very much alive, though in a coma after being struck by lightning. Obsessed with his father's research and urged on by Ygor, Wolf decides to bring the monster out of his coma. He gives the lab a makeshift roof covering and cleans it up, experimenting on the monster with the assistance of Ygor and the assistant Wolf brought with him from the United States, Thomas Benson (Edgar Norton), whose addition to the team angers Ygor.

It will surprise no one that Frankenstein's monster returns to consciousness, setting up a complex power struggle between all our characters. The monster just wants to live in peace. Ygor, the only human the monster trusts, wants to use him for his own nefarious revenge-based purposes (he was genuinely mistreated by the villagers but his plans are also morally dubious) and to get the other people in the castle out of his way now that he has what he needs. Wolf wants to win the monster's trust, get him away from Ygor, study him further, become a legend in the scientific community, and keep all this shit a secret from Inspector Krogh (and, for the time being, his own family). Krogh knows the monster is back and wants him dead and is also becoming much less enamored of Wolf, who goes from mild-mannered friendly doctor to zero-chill obviously-hiding-the-truth obsessive ball of intensity in the blink of an eye. The villagers want the Frankensteins the hell out of their once tourist-friendly village. Elsa wants to know why her husband is acting so damn weird and also wants the hell out of the village. The sulfur pit just keeps getting hotter and bubblier. No one is on the same page here, and the conflicts, secrets, and opposing viewpoints become a tornado of drama. I grew up in a small town, so this is just like a documentary to me.

This is such a well-designed, well-written, well-made, well-performed Universal monster movie. It looks beautiful and remains compelling throughout, and, though it never reaches the heights of the James Whale films, it comes surprisingly close. Later installments may have become more soulless and profit-chasing, but this feels like a heartfelt work, made by artists and craftsmen. I love it. (Though Wolf does get off a little too easy at the end. He was part of the problem, man.)