Missing In Action Movies

            They post photos of missing kids on milk cartons. But what do they do about movies that you can never find? Movies that haven’t shown up on video, DVD or streaming (unless you count bootlegged blurry copies with Rumanian subtitles). I’m always amused and annoyed by online message boards concerning Blu-ray and DVD releases where people are bitching, “I hope they put out the full uncut European version!” No one seems to realize that many independent films have been lost to time, vinegar syndrome, rights disputes, their film negatives ending in some land fill. We’re lucky to get what we get. My heart leaps when I hear the stories of supposedly lost films like Dryer’s silent film The Passion Of Joan Of Arc only to have an original print discovered in a janitor’s closet at a mental hospital in Oslo in 1982. But many movies have not been so lucky. For me there a handful of films I would kill to own. Here’s my MIA wish list (although I’ve been so shocked recently with Blu-ray releases of such rarities as Dear Dead Delilah and The Killing Kind, anything’s possible).

            Forty Deuce. Paul Morrissey directed this adaptation of Alan Bowne’s electrifying play about Times Square male hustlers and used much of the cast of the original play- including Kevin Bacon, Mark Keyloun (Mike’s Murder) and a young Esai Morales as male prostitutes. The plot is about luring an unsuspecting john (Orson Bean) to their apartment in order to get him high and slip him in bed with a young dead boy who OD’d the night before so they can extort money from him. What Bowne did so beautifully was to create a new kind of slang for the street kids- the dialogue is profane and rhythmic and blackly funny. Morrissey filmed a lot in split screen, which also compliments the drama and it’s a gritty reminder of long-gone days on Times Square, with a terrific performance by Bacon as a junkie hustler. I saw this at occasional festivals but it frustratingly never played in theaters or appeared on DVD. Bowne worked with Morrissey afterwards, writing additional dialogue for the brilliant Mixed Blood and Spike Of Bensonhurst before dying of AIDs in 1989. He was a truly amazing writer and his death was a tragic loss. This just screams for a digitally re-mastered Blu-ray release. Or at least I scream for it.

            The Boy Who Cried Bitch. Karen Young plays a loving but ineffective mother of a psychotic boy (Harley Cross). All her pathetic attempts to get help for the troubled boy fail and his violence escalates. This is the kind of film that afterwards makes you feel like someone has punched you for an hour and a half. It’s frightening and unrelenting. But both Young and Cross give such astonishing, raw, fearless performances. Directed by Juan Jose Campanella, this premiered at the Boston Film Festival and got a limited run in theaters and then disappeared. But I never forgot it and would kill to see it again. Although just writing those words I got anxious about having to re-watch Harley Cross screaming “slut bitch” at his mother.

The Mother And The Whore. Jean Eustache’s 1973 masterpiece is a staggering three-and-a-half-hour film about a Parisian menage-a-trois. Jean-Pierre Leaud plays the self-absorbed student Alexandre, who juggles two volatile girlfriends: Marie (Bernadette LaFont), a dress-shop owner who supports him financially, and the pretty, promiscuous Veronika (Francoise Lebrun). Shot in black and white and set over a four-week period, the film is often maddeningly talky, but it casts an incredibly powerful spell. My favorite moment is when the leads listen to an entire scratchy Edith Piaf record without saying a word. Released on VHS in 1999, but where is it on DVD or Blu-ray?

            The Brave. The story behind the making of this film is fascinating. Producers optioned the book by Gregory McDonald and got Disney’s Touchstone Pictures interested in financing with Aziz Ghazal (writer of Zombie High) as director. But then in 1993 Ghazal bludgeoned his estranged wife and 13-year-old daughter to death and set fire to their cabin. His body was found a month later by hikers in the woods- he had shot himself. Touchstone dropped the project like a hot potato. But the producers approached Johnny Depp who was intrigued by the story, but not the script, and he re-wrote, directed and starred in the movie. Depp plays a Native-American ex-con down on his luck, living in a (literal) trash heap with his wife and children. He agrees to star in a snuff movie and is given a lot of cash which he hopes will bring his family a better life. The film chronicles the week he spends before turning himself over and ultimately being tortured and murdered. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the year. Royally slammed by critics when it came out, the film never appeared on home video in the USA. I found a copy in Chinatown on VCD, and while the movie isn’t great- it’s certainly not the disaster I expected. Even hambone Marlon Brando shows up in a creepy cameo. It would be nice to see this get an American release so that people can make their own mind of whether this Johnny Depp folly should have been re-titled The Birdbrained, or actually a rather heartfelt tale of a man who sacrifices all for his family.

            Who Killed Teddy Bear? A sleaze masterpiece, circa 1965, directed by Joseph Cates starring Sal Mineo as a Peeping Tom busboy who spies on leggy Juliet Prowse and makes obscene phone calls to her. There are a lot of scenes of Mineo in his underwear or in a revealing Speedo. With Jan Murray as a creepy cop and Elaine Stritch as the lesbian boss of a disco, who also has her eyes on Prowse. This trash classic, shot on location in New York, was released on DVD in Europe but missing key scenes of Mineo wandering around Times Square cruising sex boutiques.

            Terror From The Year 5000. One of those 50s sci-fi movies that is ludicrously entertaining. A scientist on an island off the coast of Florida creates a time machine and sends objects into the void, only to receive statues from the future that are unfortunately wildly radioactive. The scientist’s hotshot assistant secretly coaxes out of the machine a woman from the future (Salome Jens)- a deadly female in a spangled jump-suit with the radioactive kiss of death. But there are so many “American International Pictures” favorites unavailable on DVD that I’m not holding my breath waiting for this loony wonder to appear.

            The Magic Garden Of Stanley Sweetheart. Now this 1970 counter-culture movie is pretty awful, but it stars a criminally sexy Don Johnson as a young man reveling in sex, drugs and rock and roll in 1960s NYC. Johnson plays an aspiring filmmaker at Columbia University. Bored, restless and obsessed with a pretty blonde student, he has one-night stands with girls he meets in the Village and films a promiscuous roommate (Holly Near) masturbating in a bathtub. It’s all about dropping out, trying to find oneself and Sweetheart’s inability to commit to a relationship. In other words- it’s a portrait of an asshole, but a really fucking cute one. I even had the soundtrack album for this stupid film and I don’t think I ever played it once. Why on earth would I want this so badly on DVD or Blu-ray? I have no idea, but I desperately do. Go figure.

            Play It As It Lays. This is another mess based on Joan Didion’s unforgettable book, and it was directed by Frank Perry and stars Tuesday Weld. Watching Tuesday Weld in anything is worth it, though. God- is she great. I remember being gobsmacked by her sex-kitten deadliness in Pretty Poison, and her wonderful quirky turns in Lord Love A Duck and The Cincinnati Kid. I was disheartened to hear that she turned down so many roles that may have propelled her to super-stardom but I am grateful to be able to watch any film that she’s in. Even this turd. Weld plays a former model who restlessly drives around L.A. in her yellow Corvette, and hangs out with her unhappy gay friend (a sensational Anthony Perkins). She goes to Las Vegas, gets busted with drugs in her car, and her friend swallows a handful of pills. Reading Didion, those passages of her drifting around in her car were thrilling. On film, it gets pretty boring. But Tuesday Weld never is, and even though the movie doesn’t work, I’d kill to have it in my collection.

            Remember My Name. Alan Rudolph’s strange, fabulous film about revenge has an astonishing soundtrack by the great blues singer Alberta Hunter. The always great Geraldine Chaplin plays Emily, a disturbed woman released from prison after serving a 12-year sentence for murder. She sets her sights on her ex-husband (Anthony Perkins), now living happily with his new wife (Berry Berenson) in California. Emily’s insidious plot to destroy her ex plays out with such dark humor and is filled with unexpected twists. I was in love with this when it came out in 1978, and when I managed a movie theater in Provincetown we would play this film every summer and inspire new fans. I have such fond memories of sitting at the top of the stairs in the theater basking in this sublimely weird movie. But where the hell is it now?

            The Story Of Temple Drake. This 1933 shocker, (sort of) based on William Faulkner’s Sanctuary, starring Miriam Hopkins was so notorious many say it helped kick-start the Hays Production Code. Hopkins plays Temple Drake, a free-wheeling, wild daughter of a respectable Mississippi family. A car accident one drunken night fatefully brings her into contact with the criminal brute Trigger (phenomenal Jack La Rue). She loses her inhibitions and falls under his spell, even willingly becoming a prostitute for him. A murder Trigger committed (that Temple witnessed) is mistakenly blamed on another man and Drake is reluctant to testify in court and reveal her sordid fall from grace. The movie differs from the downbeat, cynical Faulkner ending, but is so bizarre it’s kind of fabulous. And there is so much twisted sexual tension in the movie it truly lives up to its scandalous reputation. Thought to be lost, it was recently magnificently restored by the Museum Of Modern Art. But where the hell is it on home video??? And why isn’t it on my shelf right this second?

Update: Criterion is putting out The Story Of Temple Drake on Dec. 3!