R.I.P., Cloris Leachman

R.I.P. to one of the all-time greats, and an actress to whom I've always wanted to devote more time here at Junta Juleil. You can read more about her sublime performances in SOMEONE I TOUCHED, CRAZY MAMA, and Cannon Films' HANSEL AND GRETEL.

Only now does it occur to me... SOMEONE I TOUCHED (1975)

Only now does it occur to me... that SOMEONE I TOUCHED is the disease detective melodrama we all need right now.

It opens with local county public health official Andy Robinson––whom you may recall as "the Scorpio Killer" in DIRTY HARRY or "the dad" in HELLRAISER––hunting down Glynnis O'Connor at a game of beach volleyball (!) in order to tell her she has syphilis. Talk about harshing the vibe!

Andy Robinson, who has played a raft of psychos, degenerates, and hapless bank robbers, is meant to be compassionate and reassuring in his demeanor, like Mr. Rogers. He's a good enough actor to pull this off, but the scenario still had me chuckling.

He tasks her with informing her sexual partners––namely, James Olson (COMMANDO, RAGTIME), a  suburban man she met at the grocery store where she works checkout. He's married, too––specifically, to Cloris muthafuckin' Leachman.

I know we've discussed my love for Cloris here––as a pistol-whippin' outlaw in CRAZY MAMA and as a crazed cannibal witch in Cannon Films' HANSEL AND GRETEL––but ya know what, I don't think I sing her praises enough.

Her character's pregnant, but she's still in the labor pool––she works in an editorial capacity for a small publishing company. I must mention that said company, run by THE PRODUCERS' Kenneth Mars, is seemingly dedicated to the worship of a particular creepy dummy. This one:

There is no explanation given here, just a creepy dummy sitting around the office. On the far wall, there's a crude sketch of the dummy as well.

WHY IS IT THERE? The film overtly refuses to broach the subject, which only increases my levels of curiosity. Perhaps there is no why. It just is.

Later, when Cloris packs up for maternity leave, she takes the dummy. Again, she does not mention its meaning or purpose. She just shares a tender moment with it and puts it in a box. This means the dummy belongs to her, and is not, like, the "corporate mascot" or something. WHAT IS GOING ON.

 

Anyway, urged on by Andy Robinson's disease detective, James Olson decides he must come clean to Cloris about the infidelity and the syphilis. He has to––it could even impact the development of the forthcoming baby. 

What follows is one of the greatest moments in TV movie history. He says, "I've got syphilis."

And Cloris internalizes this, agonizes over it.

 

She feels revulsion at his touch.

  

She backs away.

 

And she backs away.

And backs away some more.

 

And, my god, she backs into yet another portrait of the weird dummy! But I must say, it's one of those rare moments in film where the melodrama is patently, risibly ridiculous, and yet it's all rather deeply felt and performed. You see a half a dozen emotions play across Cloris' face as she categorizes every implication, relates it to her unborn child, relates it to her domestic life, considers every ramification, and plans her next move. All of this is apparent and subtly played, even in the face of the longest, slowest "recoil in disgust" moment in all filmdom. I love this.

Anyway, along the way there are twists, turns, catharses, prognoses, and all manner of movie-of-the-week melodrama. It even ends with a timely and, let me be the first to say it––legitimately poignant––finale which emphasizes that your personal emotions do not matter as far as contagious diseases are concerned. You simply have to do the right thing for public health and your fellow citizens, even if that causes you temporary discomfort or perceived embarrassment. Rise above your vanity, cause we're all in this together!

There's never an explanation for the dummy, though. Ah, well. Its mystery shall endure.

Only now does it occur to me... HANSEL AND GRETEL (1987)

Only now does it occur to me... how much narrative padding has to go into HANSEL AND GRETEL to make it feature-length. Let's be honest, the bullet points are these: mom and dad are struggling; Hansel and Gretel go into the woods on an errand (or are abandoned there by their parents, depending on the telling), find the witch's candy house, almost get eaten by the witch, and then they shove her into the oven. There's a reason why the best film version (Tim Burton's) runs about 35 minutes. But this is not early Tim Burton––it's a Cannon MovieTale.

That's right: the children's movie/fairy tale offshoot of Cannon Films (probably only created to get a tax break or something), the same one that brought us Christopher Walken as PUSS IN BOOTS. And, hoo boy, this thing is a mess. As the parents, we have David Warner (TIME BANDITS, TRON, TITANIC, TWIN PEAKS) and Emily Richards (EMPIRE OF THE SUN, ENEMY AT THE DOOR), who clearly deserve better. There's a lot of dignity up for grabs here. Look at Emily Richards, she's so upset she can barely stand up by herself. For starters, she's dressed like an Oktoberfest wench at a knock-off Disneyland.

And poor David Warner. He's trying his best. He's wearing a community theater peasant blouse they stole from a production of THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE. They didn't even launder it first.

They pad this shit with 44 minutes of family drama before we even see the candy house. Lotta Aryan-types moping and puttering around a medieval cabin. It's like the world's worst Ingmar Bergman film. 

Finally, the candy house. You'd have to imagine this would be a holy grail for a production designer––you could really go nuts with it. Instead we get this sad sack shit.
They thought they could jazz it up with some half-assed star bows from the Dollar Store that were lying around in somebody's junk drawer. A child would have done a better job.

You'd think you couldn't get any more depressed. Maybe if they shoehorned in an Oscar-winning actress who deserves a lot better? Somebody like Cloris motherfuckin' Leachman (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE TWILIGHT ZONE, DILLINGER, DAISY MILLER, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN)?

At least she has fun with it. You can tell she wasn't directed at all. None of this movie was. Half of her shots have her leering and extending her fingernails like she was told to "act witchy" and then they forgot to say "Cut!" She gets to go full-HOCUS POCUS soon enough, and in one of the film's two stylistic decisions, they give her some SUSPIRIA-style Argento lighting. 

 

So there's that, at least. She just keeps going, though, cause, like I said, they totally forgot to say "Cut!"

She captures the kiddies and we get a few iconic images.

I recommend singing aloud––to the tune of Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog"––"Now you're messin' with a... Leach-man wiii-iiitch! Now you're messin' with a Leachman witch!"

We even learn that her grounds are populated with the still-living bodies of her victims, children who have been entombed within weeping gingerbread men:

"If you look closely, you can see the tears." Hell, that shoulda been the tag-line to this movie. Speaking of which, throughout, all of this is crosscut with David Warner wandering in the woods, looking for his kids.

It's very post-Beckett, and we return to it a comical number of times. Yep, time to check in on Warner again. No dialogue. Just fruitless searching. And disappointment. It's sweaty out there. If you look closely, you can see the tears.

He's giving us some real "I need to fire my agent" vibes. It's great.

They try to make it a plot point that the witch can't see without her magical, enchanted magnifying glass

but it's totally one of those plastic magnifying glasses that you get as a prize from a cereal box. It doesn't even have glass as a lens, only thickened plastic. Tough to sell it as a magic totem, is what I'm saying. Anyway, the kids lower her into a subterranean oven with a rope (which is much less satisfying than shoving her into a more conventional stove)

 

but then comes the coup de grâce, and the second creative stylistic decision the filmmakers made. That's right, the house explodes in a SHINING-style ejaculation of foamy Leachman blood: 

And it just

keeps

gushing!

The other kiddies break out of their gingerbread prisons

and, mercifully, it's over. This has been a Cannon MovieTale.

Only now does it occur to me... CRAZY MAMA (1975)

Only now does it occur to me... that I never thought I'd live to see Cloris Leachman scream aloud the word "fartknocker" and go on a wild crime spree.

Allow me to contextualize. CRAZY MAMA is a Roger Corman-produced, Jonathan Demme-directed (the second feature from the man who would bring us THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, STOP MAKING SENSE, and A MASTER BUILDER) nostalgia-crime flick that feels like a less-competent John Waters version of GREASE fused with BONNIE AND CLYDE. Set in the late 1950s, it features Ann Sothern (THE WHALES OF AUGUST, A LETTER TO THREE WIVES):

and Cloris Leachman (THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW):

as a mother-daughter duo whose beauty parlor is foreclosed upon by a dunderheaded Jim Backus. This leads to the aforementioned "fartknocker" (screamed by Leachman at a repo man) and a crime spree that sees Cloris and her gang taking out banks, dirt bike races, and even a wedding (!).

As is the New World Pictures Way, there are many scenes of parades and truck stops and racetracks that seem to exist not because the script calls for it, but because the crew wandered past and began filming without a permit.


Imagery worthy of Malick, I say

Of note: the bit parts and cameos are more than worthy of a Demme-Corman flick of this caliber. The legendary Dick Miller shows up as a cuckolding highway patrolman:

We're looking at less than a minute of screentime

 Writer/director and noted gun enthusiast John Milius (RED DAWN, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, EXTREME PREJUDICE)

plays a state cop who lines up the perfect shot but is run off the road by an unbridled Cloris Leachman:


Will Sampson (THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, "Chief" in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST) plays a roadside entrepreneur feigning interest in this movie:


And Bill Paxton plays a blink-and-you'll-miss-him cop in his first film role, ever:


Spectacularly, the whole crime spree (which indeed amasses a body count) is relatively consequence-free for Ms. Leachman, who, in the course of this film, murders, robs, speeds, and even vandalizes her daddy's grave.

How ya like that, remnants of the production code?

I'm concerned that in describing this film I've made it seem more appealing than it actually is––it's definitely a mess and occasionally a chore, but for the completist, it is an effective delivery system of Cloris Leachman crazyface in a variety of low-rent 1950s tableaux.