R.I.P., Clu Gulager

This one hurts. Clu first came to my attention as "Lee" in Don Siegel's THE KILLERS, where his vicious calm and truly inspired acting choices made such an impression that I was compelled to seek out as many of his films as I could get my hands on. 

First, it was the easiest ones to find––like THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE, WINNING, or MCQ; and then it was the rarities––staying up late to catch IRONSIDE, WALKER, TEXAS RANGER, and MURDER, SHE WROTE reruns, or buying old dog-eared videocassettes of WONDERLAND COVE/a.k.a. STICKIN' TOGETHER and THE WILLIES and HUNTER'S BLOOD and THE INITIATION. Recently, I'd been overjoyed to see him reaching new audiences with bit parts in Sean Baker's TANGERINE and Tarantino's ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD.

His work is magnificent, no matter the context; in turns it can be morbid, melancholy, rugged, or hilarious. I saw him sow deep, satisfying empathy across a rogues' gallery of murderers, abusers (THE GAMBLER, among others!), and perverts (TAPEHEADS, among others!). There's his wonderfully macabre work with his departed wife Miriam Byrd-Nethery in FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, creating a very human monster who bleeds pathos and induces in the viewer something approaching a somber state of agony. In each role he is intensely connected achieves a shocking level of intimacy; in each role he captures something that is true. Even in the films where he given nearly nothing to work with, like COMPANY OF KILLERS.

Then, I discovered Clu as a filmmaker. I saw the haunting and poetic A DAY WITH THE BOYS (available on the Criterion edition of GEORGE WASHINGTON and nominated for the short film Palm d'Or at Cannes), a film that wrests the viewer from reality and into a dream-space, one that's frightening and powerful. I saw several of the shorts he collaborated on with his family for their legendary acting workshops, read about the struggles of FUCKING TULSA (an incomplete film I dearly hope to have the opportunity to see one day), and got many kick from his son John Gulager's lovably demented horror features from the past decade (which are truly Gulager family affairs––films like the FEAST trilogy and PIRANHA 3DD). The entire family's work is infused with a fearless Grand Guignol sensibility and an infectiously gleeful streak of sadism, but it grapples with something larger and darker and more mysterious. In their incredible story, I see the anguish of life's stumbling blocks and I see the joy of what compels human beings to create. Clu and his family are soldiers of cinema, in the Herzogian sense.

PS–– For more context, I also highly recommend this piece about the Gulager clan (Clu, his wife Miram Byrd-Nethery (R.I.P.), his sons Tom and John, and daughter-in-law Diane Ayala) which first appeared in L.A. Weekly in 1997.

Only now does it occur to me... COMPANY OF KILLERS

Only now does it occur to me...  that while COMPANY OF KILLERS is a fairly dull, run-of-the-mill 70s TV police procedural, amid depressed Ray Milland,

I feel your pain, Ray

a sleepy Fritz Weaver,

I know it ain't CREEPSHOW, but run it up the flagpole, man!

and a hardboiled but bland John Saxon (doing a weird, sorta old-country accent),

He plays– no joke– an assassin named... "Poohler"

is an incredibly likable Clu Gulager performance as "Frank Quinn," a persistent and wacky newspaper reporter who cracks wise and offers people the opportunity to pull out his tonsils.

He's always chewing on things and messing around with unexpected bits of acting business, as is his way.  You get the idea he's actually having some fun in the middle of all this crap, which is more than can be said for anyone else.  Good goin', Clu!

(And for those who are not acquainted, you can read more about my love of all things Gulager here, and a little more about the saga of his artistic family here.)

Film Review: THE INITIATION (1984, Larry Stewart)

Stars: 2 of 5.
Running Time: 97 minutes.

Tag-line: "They pledge themselves to be young, stay young... and die young."

Notable Cast or Crew: Vera Miles (THE SEARCHERS, PSYCHO), Clu Gulager (THE KILLERS, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW), Daphne Zuniga (THE SURE THING, SPACEBALLS, THE FLY II), Christopher Bradley (IRON EAGLE, WAXWORK), Rusty Meyers (SILVERADO, BEST OF THE BEST II).

Best One-liner: "Sometimes I think that man would forget his head if it wasn't attached."

The best laid plans of mice and men...  I wanted to like this one.  Its reputation is that of a "bottom of the barrel slasher" and while indeed it delivers on that promise, I had hoped for something a little better, especially with classic Hollywood performers Clu Gulager and Vera Miles headlining the thing (spoiler alert– they're barely in it).  

THE INITIATION is essentially many different movies packed into one, none of which are particularly engaging, scary, or fun.  It begins like an Argento movie, with a childhood trauma illustrated by flashback, then melds into witch/coven movie with a group of gals who take their sorority a little too seriously,

but before you know it, it's an insane asylum movie that begins building atmosphere,

and then, as our heroine Daphne Zuniga suffers from recurring nightmares,

And, yes, that is Princess Vespa from SPACEBALLS.

it develops into a medical thriller, like those lab test scenes from NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET or THE EXORCIST, and then suddenly it's just an 80s college party movie,

and that's all well and good, but finally it settles into a mediocre slasher, set after hours at a department store.  So in the end this is a "mall slasher with a twist," but it's not as good as CHOPPING MALL.  It was also the first and only theatrical feature written by Charles Pratt Jr., who then ran screaming in the direction of soap operas (prime time and daytime alike!), working as a head writer on shows like GENERAL HOSPITAL, ALL MY CHILDREN, MELROSE PLACE, and MODELS, INC.  Whew.

A few observations:

#1.  Clu Gulager.  Gulager is one of my all-time favorite actors.  I wrote about him most exhaustively (I think?) in my review of THE KILLERS, but you can also read a fascinating profile of him and his amazing, artistic oddball family here.  Clu is the main reason why I watched this film, but you definitely get the idea that Clu and Vera were on set for maybe three or four days, tops.

Why, indeed?

This was around the period where they started to pigeonhole Clu as a horror actor (See also: NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2, THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, UNINVITED, FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM, HUNTER'S BLOOD, etc.) instead of a TV actor.  Clu doesn't really get the chance to do anything flashy here, though he does rock out some old-man-science-teacher glasses:

and he looks pretty happy cracking out some bubbly:

But the writer soon introduces two new plot threads, painting Clu's character as a philanderer and a possible land developer-villain.  To the audience, this means one of three things: A. his character is being tarnished because he's about to die a deserved death, B. he's slowly developing into the film's big baddie, or C. he'll be the impotent rich guy who accidentally causes widespread destruction, like Richard Attenborough in JURASSIC PARK.  Unfortunately for us Gulager fans, it's A., and by the thirty-three minute mark, he's been dispatched with a garden implement and decapitated.  Goddamit.


Clu does take his death scene for all it's worth.

Little did we know it all was a lead-up for Vera Miles' chuckle/groan-inducing one-liner:


Vera Miles:  "Thankya ladies and germs, I'll be here all week.  Er– I mean, I'll be back for about twenty seconds at the end of the movie."


#2.  I must give special mention to this simultaneously repulsive and low-rent penis costume:

which is probably the most mortifying/identity-obscuring costume since Scout went as Ham in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

Pass the damn ham.

#3.  Unlicensed Wendy Carlos?  In the film's first scene set at the sorority house, I swear we hear an electronic Bach adaptation from Wendy Carlos' SWITCHED-ON BACH series (she also worked on the soundtracks for A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, THE SHINING, and TRON), but there's no mention of her in the end credits.  I only bring it up because it actually establishes a nice, spooky mood, and for the only time in the film.   


#4.  What the hell are they drinking here?

The picture above depicts a sorority babe combining what is clearly a watery keg beer on the right with whatever green shit that is on the left.  And don't tell me it's green beer, because why would you sully regular beer with green beer?  Maybe it's Kool-Aid?  But that seems like an even more hideous misstep.  Perhaps Créme de menthe?  Mouthwash?  Why in God's name would anybody want minty beer?  Perhaps it is a metaphor for the movie itself: a cruel concoction of simultaneously low-quality and incongruous ingredients served up to horror fans who've already resigned themselves to taking whatever cruel swill is handed to them.  Eh, maybe that's a bit harsh.  But then again, drinkin' mouthwash always makes me surly!

That's about all, folks.  Two stars.

–Sean Gill

2014 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

1.  FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY (1999, Scott Spiegel)

2.  MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935, Tod Browning)

3.  FULL MOON HIGH (1981, Larry Cohen)

4.  EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS (2002, Ellory Elkayem)

5.  MASTERS OF HORROR: WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM (2007, Tom Holland)

6.  STEPHEN KING ON SONS OF ANARCHY (2010, Bill Gierhart)

7. ...

Only now does it occur to me... PIRANHA 3DD

Only now does it occur to me...  that Gary Busey and Clu Gulager have ever fused together their particular demented aesthetics and artistic manias in the form of something as accessible as a "film scene."

Yes, the opening scene of PIRANHA 3DD (directed by Clu's son, John) affords us such an opportunity, as two hapless backwater folk (Busey and Gulager) wade into ominous marshland to examine a flatulent, piranha-infested cow-corpse.  Needless to say, they don't last for long, but Clu (still wonderful, at 84 years-young) gets to growl out some "God damns" and "What the hells"

and Busey gets to (improvise?) some peculiar dialogue:

so it certainly maintains a kind of integrity.

(And for those of you new to the Gulager "scene," I advise checking out my review of THE KILLERS, which spells it out more thoughtfully.)

Anyway, the incredible mixture of the two volatile substances that are Busey and Gulager had me wondering if this was the first time it had ever happened.  Some IMDb-ing revealed that in 1991, they both appeared in MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COWBOYS, a rodeo drama which co-stars Scott Glenn, Kate Capshaw, Ben Johnson, and Clarence Williams III, among others.  While I've been unable to discern whether or not Busey and Gulager shared any scenes together, I have been able to discern that it is a film that must be seen!

Television Review: KENNY ROGERS AS THE GAMBLER (1980, Dick Lowry)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 94 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Kenny Rogers, Bruce Boxleitner (TRON, BABYLON 5), Clu Gulager (TAPEHEADS, THE KILLERS), Harold Gould (THE STING, SILENT MOVIE), Lee Purcell (MR. MAJESTYK, VALLEY GIRL), Noble Willingham (CHINATOWN, NORMA RAE, THE HOWLING). Song "The Gambler" written by Don Schlitz and performed by Kenny Rogers.
Tag-line: "You Got To Know When To Hold 'Em, Know When To Fold Em... "
Best one-liner: "The question is... which two of you are willing to take the bullets?"

It was bound to happen. One of the great narrative songs of the modern era had to be turned into one of the great television movies of the modern era. And what a song it is. Written by a man named Don Schlitz, it sees a meeting between two gamblers on a train bound for nowhere, fast. The elderly gambler offers the younger cardsharp some (now legendary) advice in exchange for his last swallow of whiskey. After taking that final swig, the elderly gambler dispenses his advice, puts out his cigarette, and dies. For the record, Kenny Rogers sings the song in character as the younger man, yet in the movie he plays the older character with Bruce Boxleitner as the up-and-comer. Also, the whole 'dying' bit was excised (there were four sequels).

Kenny Rogers petitions Boxleitner for his final sip of whiskey.

Anyway, Kenny Rogers stars as Brady Hawkes, a dude who knows when to hold 'em, knows when to fold 'em, knows when to walk away, knows when to run, and who never counts his money when he's sitting at the table because there shall plenty of time to calculate one's winnings after the game has drawn to a close.


Personal hero Clu Gulager co-stars as a woman-stealin', kid-nappin', gunslingin' Kenny Rogers nemesis. Gulager, as always, shines like a artistic supernova, packing the surly 'Rufe Bennett' with so much pathos that you nearly are rooting for him. Bruce Boxleitner even gets in on the action as the up-and-comer gambler ready to take up Kenny's mantle. But when the cards fall, the chips are down, and there's no more aces left in holes, things aren't as black and white as you'd think. THE GAMBLER ends up being about how tough life is for us all– no heroes here. No villains here. Just regular folk tryin' to catch a break.

And now I shall end with a montage of screen captures of Clu Gulager in his natural habitat.

CLU GULAGER RUNS A SALOON AND EXUDES PATHOS


CLU GULAGER GETS THE LADIES AND GRINS LIKE A SMART-ALECK


CLU GULAGER WILL MIX YOU A DRINK


CLU GULAGER WILL STRIKE A CHILD IF HE HAS TO



CLU GULAGER WILL...get punched out by Kenny Rogers?- Ah, well, Clu was always subject to ignominious defeats, just watch THE KILLERS.

So alright, gents, I'm gonna raise you four stars. And then I'm gonna fold. Gonna walk away and leave you with 'em. Why? Cause you earned 'em, goddammit.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: THE KILLERS (1964, Don Siegel)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Tag-line: " There is more than one way to kill a man!"
Notable Cast or Crew: Lee Marvin, Clu Gulager, John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson, Claude Akins, Norman Fell, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Cassel, Robert Phillips.
Best one-liner: "Lady, I haven't got the time."

Loosely- very loosely- based on the Ernest Hemingway short story of the same name, Don Siegel's THE KILLERS was the third filmic adaptation of the work (following in the footsteps of Robert Siodmak and Andrei Tarkovsky), and was intended to be the very first made-for-television movie. Due in part to wanton violence directed toward women, the blind, and the defenseless, THE KILLERS instead made its debut theatrically. Much lambasted by critics- at least in comparison to Siodmak's '46 version- I'm here to give you 16 reasons why THE KILLERS is one of my all-time favorite movies, and is the only one that I can think of where the father of American independent film punches out Ronald Reagan over the honor of the star of BIG BAD MAMA. So without further ado–

#1. Clu Gulager. Well, actually, a lot of these will be Clu Gulager-related, but I just wanted to get the main thrust out of the way. This is the movie that turned me into a bona fide Gulager fanatic.

After I first saw it, I ran screaming into the streets, singing the praises of Mr. Gulager to nearly anyone who would listen. I researched his career. I saw the mainstream stuff like RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, THE HIDDEN, MCQ, and THE GAMBLER. I hunted down movies of his that exist only on VHS, from WONDERLAND COVE to HUNTER'S BLOOD to AMBUSH AT WACO: IN THE LINE OF DUTY. I checked out thirty or so of his guest appearances on television from AIRWOLF to MAGNUM, P.I. to IRONSIDE to KNIGHT RIDER to HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL to MURDER, SHE WROTE, where he played three different characters in three different episodes. I saw the Lázló Kovács-lensed short film that Clu directed which played at Cannes (A DAY WITH THE BOYS- presently available on the Criterion DVD of GEORGE WASHINGTON). I've awaited, with bated-breath, the decades-in-the-making Gulager family project FUCKING TULSA- AN EXCURSION INTO CRUELTY. In fact, all of you should read this piece about the Gulager clan (Clu, his wife Miram Byrd-Nethery (R.I.P.), his sons Tom and John, and daughter-in-law Diane Ayala) which first appeared in L.A. Weekly in 1997.

Anyway- back to the film at hand. As Lee, one of the eponymous 'Killers,' Clu cements his reputation as one of the premier character actors, his smarmy vicious calm etching him forever on the map of badasses in cinema. He's brutal, he's hilarious, and he's improvising up a storm. One could even say he's notable for being the only actor to hold his own aside Lee Marvin besides Gene Hackman in PRIME CUT, Mifune in HELL IN THE PACIFIC, and maybe that rocket launcher in DELTA FORCE. And so much of Gulager's business is happening in the background, drawing your attention in a should-have-been-star-making way, á la Steve McQueen's shenanigans in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN.


Clu performs a blindness aptitude test on a visually impaired woman.


Clu swabs his dirty sunglasses with sweat from Norman Fell's dampened head.



Clu takes a swig of Claude Akins' third-rate hooch, then, in a dick move, looks for a place on the floor to spit it out. (In real life Clu was a teetotaler.)

More on Clu in a bit.

#2. Lee Marvin. A.K.A. The Terrifying Intimate Verbal Sadism of Lee Marvin.

Lee really knows how to get in your personal space. Not many actors do. In the contemporary era, Rutger Hauer and Jimmy Smits come to mind, and perhaps a few others, but I think this is a filmmaking technique/acting skill which has sadly gone by the wayside. He's not your garden-variety sadist. Somehow, Lee Marvin taps into that primal element– that basic human relationship between child and adult– and translates it in a manner which cements his status as an adult in a world that is somehow now solely populated by mere children. Take heed: perhaps if you do as he says, he will not dismantle your body with his bare hands.

LEE MARVIN MIGHT LICK YOUR EAR

Which kind of leads us to–

#3. The Shit-Eating Grins of Lee Marvin.

He is one of the few purveyors of shit-eating grins that doesn't draw one's ire. Generally, a shit-eating grin elicits contempt from an audience. Lee's shit-eating grins elicit a certain degree of respect and a great deal of fright. And speaking of grins–

#4. The way that ex-NFL player Bob Phillips clenches his teeth whenever he's doing something violent.


Is it intentional? Your guess is as good as mine. "Oh, he's doing it as he commits crimes so that his victims will not recognize him," you say. Well, no- because in the first photograph, he's in private- in the company of thieves, if you will. But it doesn't really matter. Suffice it to say- I like it.

#5. The bored, perpetually droning racetrack announcer. He just goes on and on. I guess it's background chatter for the whole scene and was probably designed as the 'glue' which holds together disconnected shots of stock footage, but it's so dull, ambling, and emotionless that it becomes... comedy gold.

Yes, we've got some great cars out here today. Some great cars. Great cars.

#6. The most simplistic heist map in film history. 'We'll go over it again– and again!" snarls Reagan, but when we finally see the map, it's this beaut:

As a side note on the heist– it involves setting up a detour for an armored truck, hiding the detour after it takes the isolated country road, passing the truck on said road, and meeting up with a faked car wreck further on down which makes the armored truck stop so that it can be easily robbed. A key plot element involves racer Johnny North (John Cassavetes) recruited as the driver, because only he can drive fast enough to pass the truck on the bumpy path . But I ask– why does it have to pass the truck? Isn't the staged wreck on the secluded route enough? Nevermind– this is getting too complicated. Let's go over it again. May I refer you to the map above?

#7. Rear-projection Go-Kart Madness! This one kinda speaks for itself.



#8. The hilarious dynamic between Gulager and Marvin. Their colorless banter– "I always liked Miami." –"Yeah, it's a nice place." The fact that Gulager is a hand-gripper-squeezin', push-up doin', carrot-juice swiggin', milk-quaffin' health nut and that Marvin is a heavy boozin', darkly broodin', shirt starchin' hardass. They don't have a whole lot going on in their lives. Being a hit man's not exactly for enterprising, visionary-types. But you believe that Gulager enjoys his work and that Marvin is tired. And that's all you need to believe.


#9. Claude Akins, who proves himself yet again to be one hell of an actor, finishes his sob story. Real fuckin' tears stream down his grimy, disconsolate grease-monkey's face.


And the camera tracks out to reveal:

Gulager and Marvin: bored as shit.

#10. The fusion of artsy, 60's cinematography and a world of stock, prefabricated sets. It's an odd juxtaposition, and for the most part, the film looks like ubiquitous 60's American studio TV work. But every once in a while, DP Richard L. Rawlings (DYNASTY, CHARLIE'S ANGELS) pulls out something worthy of Antonioni. Did Siegel set up these shots himself?


#11. A bit, wordless role by John Cassavetes crony Seymour Cassel (possibly best known now for his work with Wes Anderson).


#12. During the 'ole steam room torture' scene, Clu concludes things by stating the classic, groan-inducing one-liner, "Then there's no sweat, Mickey."


#13. The way Lee Marvin says "YOU WAIT!" Just wait for it, and you'll see what I mean.

#14. Ronald Reagan Eyebrow Action. The man is throwing around more eyebrows than Nicholson and Slater combined. It's all he does. Each eyebrow toss is worth a thousand words. Every single one of them is gold.





These freeze frames likely represent about 5% of the actual eyebrow action that Reagan delivers. He even raises some brow carpet at Gulager, as he pretends to crash cars on Reagan's scale model of a real estate development.


He should've been a school principal.

#15. The big punch out scene which I referenced earlier. It's probably the most premeditated slap I've ever seen. Angie Dickinson is going on about how she'd prefer to stick around near Cassavetes. "I like it here," she says. Reagan arches an eyebrow, exchanges a look with his buddies and announces, "Well, I can change that in a hurry!" He stands, winds up, and delivers a slap so hearty that I hit 'instant replay' at least half a dozen times.


But it's not over– Cassavetes gets into the fray, stage-punching Reagan, who, in the few moments prior to getting ghost-hit contorts his face into something resembling a background character from L'IL ABNER or at the very least, DICK TRACY. They don't make 'em like they used to.



#16. According to Clu Gulager, Lee Marvin was completely and utterly shitfaced when he filmed his final scenes. Of course, he still nailed his performance, and, if you believe Clu, which I always do, it's one of the greatest scenes in film history. And it never fails to evoke applause.

Amen.

-Sean Gill