B-Movie Heaven

There is no God. If there was, Kim’s Video would still be open. But I want to believe there is a heaven. Not the kind you see in picture books with angels and harps and pearly gates, but a B-movie heaven where it’s always dusk, it’s in black and white, and resembles an elegant movie nightclub where everybody smokes without any worries. In my mind, B-movie heaven is a lot like those songs about Rock and Roll Heaven, where Elvis and Buddy Holly sit around on clouds singing a cappella. But in my heaven, all the actors I’ve admired through the years that have lingered on the outskirts of movie history will be there. I mean, would you really want to be stuck listening to all of Marilyn Monroe’s problems when you could be at a table having cocktails with Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride? Ma & Pa Kettle themselves!

You’d think that after spending all that rotten time on earth the least you would get was a few answers to nagging questions about what these people were really like.

Rondo Hatton would be nursing a beer over in the corner. He was that poor man that suffered from acromegaly, a disfiguring disease that left him looking quite hideous. He was tastelessly exploited for his deformity, playing in a series of horror films without makeup. I’ve always wanted to know what was going on in his head during those painful years. It takes a lot of guts to turn a disability into a film career.

Why, look who just walked into the bar- it’s Susan Cabot, who played the lead in several Roger Corman films such as Carnival Rock and Sorority Girl but is most known for playing the lethal lead in The Wasp Woman. She always turned in superior performances and has always been an underappreciated favorite of mine. Sadly, she was killed many years back, bludgeoned to death by her own son who was born with a form of dwarfism.

Oh, look over there- it’s Laird Cregar, a heavyset man who played the villain in many movies. I Wake Up Screaming with Victor Mature is a memorable example. As Jack the Ripper in The Lodger he was electrifying. He went on a dangerous crash diet to lose a great deal of weight in order to play the lead in Hangover Square, a fabulous film about a deranged composer who kills when he hears a discordant note. The weight loss was thought to be responsible for his sudden death of heart failure at the age of 28.

Joan Blondell was famous for playing the wise-cracking best friend in scores of 30s Warner Brothers musicals, but in her later life she turned in some terrific performances in The Cincinnati Kid and John Cassavetes’ remarkable Opening Night. I’ve always wanted to thank her for giving me such pleasure over the years.

Oh joy- it’s Mantan Moreland checking his coat and hat. This wonderful African-American comedian was sadly typecast as the bug-eyed, easily frightened manservant in many films, notably as Charlie Chan’s chauffeur in The Chinese Cat, The Scarlet Clue, The Jade Mask and Charlie Chan in the Secret Service. He delighted audiences in more than 100 films, including Jack Hill’s fabulously crackpot 1964 cult classic Spider Baby. One can spy his underused talent as a vaudeville comedian in Bowery To Broadway and Cabin in the Sky.

Could that be Shirley Stoler over there? A formidable, amazing actress whose talent was as large as she was. She played the murderous Martha Beck in The Honeymoon Killers, and the cigar-smoking Nazi guard in Lina Wertmuller’s Seven Beauties; she took a cleaver to Alec Baldwin in Miami Blues and was the nosy neighbor Mrs. Steve on Peewee’s Playhouse. Other memorable cameos came in Klute, The Deer Hunter, Desperately Seeking Susan, Malcolm X and Frankenhooker. God, I loved her.

My all-time favorite would be there, preferably in the shadows- Dwight Frye, who cornered the market on crazed hunchbacks in Frankenstein, the doctor’s brain-dropping assistant in The Bride Of Frankenstein and, of course, the one moment in film that has been permanently tattooed on my brain- when as the fly-eating Renfield in Dracula, he crawls across the floor laughing menacingly in that eerie high voice, “hehe hehe he…”  His other features included The Invisible Man, The Vampire Bat, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man and the campy B chiller Dead Man Walk.

It would always be “happy hour” there in heaven, there would always be entertainment. Johnnie Ray would be singing “Cry,” while the strap holding up Jayne Mansfield’s dress would inevitably break. Maria Montez would be on the dance floor doing a torrid tango with Zachary Scott. And Edward Everett Horton, Oscar Levant, and Thelma Ritter would regale us with hilarious stories. Lizabeth Scott would slink up to the microphone and sing a smoky torch song that would leave us shaken, and stirred.

The only Saint Peter in my heaven would be named “Lorre”; the only angels would be Jeffrey Hunter, Luana Anders. And Nick Adams.

Now I’m not a very religious person. In fact, I worship at the altar of Onanism. But I would be willing to drop a few Hail Marys for an afterlife like this one. So, if there is a Supreme Being, I’m just asking for a simple sign from above to show me the way. Just reopen Kim’s Video. What do you say, Lord? I swear I’ll “Testify”.

Oh Mary, Oh Moses, Oh Marjorie Main…