STOP! Before you Skidoo!, read this
August 3rd, 2007 by Scott Marks
At long last…
For years it was Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope.
There were five “lost” Hitchcock films: Rope, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, Rear Window and Vertigo. The Master owned the rights and refused to allow any of these titles to be shown until after he died and the reissue proceeds would go into a trust fund set up for his grandchildren.
My friend Rick secured 16mm prints of three of the four Paramount’s and introduced me to L. B. Jeffries, Dr. and Mrs. McKenna and a stiff named Harry. Vertigo took a bit more work (in more ways than one). It first arrived in the form of a Best of CBS telecast. What the hell did an 8-year-old know from “If I let you change me, than will you love me?” In the early 80s, long before most civilians owned VCRs, Rick once again came through with a fuzzy letterbox VHS copy.
A few years later an acquaintance hipped me to a screening of a 35mm dye transfer print of Vertigo for a class at the School of the Art Institute. Forget about that washed out 1984 reissue print or the feeble 70mm blow up of 1996, the Art Institute delivered my definitive screening.
After decades of searching, I finally caught up with Rope in 1984 when the Hitchcock estate released the 5 prohibited films as a package. Years later a video box for the film mocked me as I stood in line at a convenience store. The film withheld me for over 20 years was now anybody’s for the taking providing they had a major credit card and three bucks.
Rope’s spot at the top was replaced by Jerry Lewis’ forbidden The Day the Clown Cried, a film Mr. Lewis personally assured me I had as much chance of seeing as the Chicago Fire. (Honestly, Rope was always a close second to Clown, a film I’ll probably spend a lifetime longing to see.)
For years, two Otto Preminger films (Porgy and Bess and Skidoo!) rounded out the second and third slot. With the exception of a program booklet, I had never seen so much as an image from the Gershwin adaptation. Last year, LACMA screened a pristine dye-transfer roadshow print of Porgy (complete with a magnetic soundtrack) that I had to fight to stay awake during. It’s easily Otto’s worst. I’d sit through The Moon is Blue twice before ever dipping into P&B again.
I sure in hell didn’t want to sign off on Otto’s career with Porgy the mess. There was always the Holy Grail of Ottodom: Skidoo!
If Skidoo’s poster, with its sexy bare hippie midriff, hung in a local lobby I’d have surely caught the film first run, but for the life of me I don’t remember it playing. My initial reason for wanting to Skidoo! had more to do with Ralph Kramden than Otto Preminger, although I sure did prefer his Mr. Freeze to Eli Wallach’s.
An early 70s TV viewing left me reeling. How could Gleason and all the others appear in this wretched Mad, Mad, World knock off? I skedaddled!
As much as I dismissed it, the film haunted me. Years later I snagged a pan and scan dub off Cinemax and it remained as close as I ever thought I’d get to the film. (It wasn’t even afforded a VHS release!) When I asked print master Joe Dante if he’d ever seen the film he replied, “No one has ever seen Skidoo!” A Paramount booker replied with polite laughter when asked if Skidoo! would ever be released on home video.
Technically, I had Skidooed at least a dozen times before making the pilgrimage to LA’s Aero Theater last Sunday night, but never in a widescreen format. I’d have been content with a letterboxed video copy (even the bootleg DVD versions are full frame) let alone the royal treat that lay before me.
We all sensed that it was going to be an IB print. Paramount was not about to strike a new print of this embarrassment. Rick joked that it was the same print that played opening day. With the exception of a new set of sprocket holes a blind projectionist added to the last reel, the print was in impeccable shape.
The show began on an exceedingly somber note. Blake Edwards was originally scheduled to do a Q&A after a screening of The Party, the film paired with Skidoo! Canceling due to hand surgery, Mr. Edwards made a last minute appearance. When the film ended it was announced that he was in attendance, but would not speak. The curtains to the back door parted wide enough so he could be wheeled in. The crowd erupted as he sat waving his good hand at them.
The only Skidoo! star to appear was John Phillip Law who, during the course of a 20 minute pre-show interview, managed to drop the name of every film he ever appeared in. He claimed to have got on quite well with the ill tempered director. He joked that Tom Tryon was probably still in a mental hospital after the thrashing he took during the making of The Cardinal. According to Law, he could have had the lead in Easy Rider or the Joe Buck role in Midnight Cowboy. Fortunately for viewers across the world, he landed The Love Machine instead.
Contemporary audiences are under the impression that only certain films demand the big screen treatment. This mindset is usually geared towards widescreen stiffs like Dr. Zhivago or space trash unleashed by LucasFilm or DreamWorks. All films shot in 35mm (no matter how big or small their budgets) and geared toward theatrical distribution should be seen on the big screen. Films don’t really exist until you’ve seen them in an auditorium projected across a screen. Don’t get me wrong; even though it compresses art into quality television programs I wouldn’t trade my DVD player for anything.
Seeing a film on the screen makes it official, particularly those shot in dye-transfer Technicolor® and/or Panavision®. After several video viewings, my unfavorable first impression has long since been upgraded. It’s far from the director’s Pantheon and I must admit that a lot of the fascination comes from the cast.
Jackie Gleason plays Tony Banks. Imagine Henry Hill played by Ralph Kramden after Mr. Marshall (or was it Monahan that week?) allowed him to keep the suitcase full of money he found on the bus. Tony is a rarity. After years of loyal service to the mob, he was let loose from the family tree, no strings attached.
Filling in for Audrey Meadows as Gleason’s wife Flo is the eternally insufferable Carol Channing, who is not only allowed a song but a repugnant striptease as well. Did we really need to see her in a see-thru bra? Tony and Flo are your typical suburban couple, fighting over the remote control so that Flo, who dislikes watching films on television, can click away from In Harm’s Way. Arnold Stang assumes the Ed Norton role, but not for long. It’s Stang’s gangland murder that acts as an inducement for Tony to rejoin his old team.
Cesar Romero and Frankie Avalon are summoned by “God” to collect Tony. Two of the best coiffed men in the business play a pair of sartorially refined hoods clad in matching Jack-O-Lantern outfits. (Black suits and ties with orange shirts.) It was Romero, still in his tough guy Duke Santos period, striding pissed across the pier that brought forth my first uncontrollable wave of laughter.
Mr. Romero was joined by fellow Batman alumni Frank Gorshin, who plays an inmate forced to use ventriloquism so the guards won’t read his lips, and Penguin/Preminger stalwart Burgess Meredith as the warden. Mickey Rooney is Gleason’s “hit” while Camelot exile Peter Lawford appears as “The Senator.”
Room 222 principal Michael Constantine is Tony’s cell mate and character actors Slim Pickens, Richard Kiel & Robert Donner all have bit roles. For sex appeal, Alexandra Hay, Otto’s latest ‘discovery,’ plays Tony’s free-spirited daughter, and the mysterious butt-crack showing Luna, the 60s version of Naomi Campbell, appears as Groucho’s love interest.
John Phillip Law and Austin Pendleton play hippies and as though saving the best cameo for last, Otto includes a third act appearance by Fred Clark (in his last film) as a prison guard on acid!?! How could it possibly get any better than this?
Did I fail to mention that Groucho Marx plays “God” in the Otto Preminger film Skidoodly-Ooo-Do-Do? It was the last feature Groucho appeared in, one of only 3 in color and (Erin Fleming notwithstanding) the only time he ever performed on acid. Technically, Groucho’s last appearance before a camera was in Joys, a violently insane, 1976 All-Star Bob Hope TV extravaganza that spoofed Jaws. Groucho plays one of over fifty famous comics who are mysteriously eaten by a shark. Check out the cast on imdb: http://imdb.com/title/tt0164066/. Needless to say, Joys usurped Skidoo’s place behind The Day the Clown Cried.
Even by J. Cheever Loophole’s standards, Grouch looks ridiculous under a sky blue sport coat, Shinola widow’s peak and electrical tape moustache. For a seasoned pro, Grouch appears to be giving cold line readings. Maybe it was the hallucinogenics doing the acting. If these were the best takes I’d love to see what was left on the cutting room floor.
The germ phobic mafia kingpin spent the last 20 years of his life sequestered on a bullet proof ship overseen by George Raft. Raft got off easy. He spends most of his time positioned before a closed-circuit camera connected to God’s room.
Acid mixes with autobiography and it isn’t long before Groucho is musing over how “it’s a lousy way to grow old.” The biggest, albeit unintentional, laff lost in a pan and scan viewing came when Groucho, shunted off to the far left, had to stare across the vast CinemaScope expanse to struggle with the cue cards. This mean spirited milestone was seconded by Groucho’s osteopathic handling of Ms. Hay.
Setting the cast (and a passel of potentially snarky remarks) aside, this could be Preminger’s most conflicted narrative. What would happen if a hitman, called out of retirement to infiltrate a prison in order to kill his former partner, became a pacifist after accidentally ingesting his hippie cellmate’s acid-laced envelopes?
While screenwriter Doran William Cannon was happy to pick up a check for a hippie comedy, Otto wanted more drama. One minute were chuckling when Gleason asks if an unconscious John Phillip Law is a “faggot,” the next a bit stunned to see his best friend exiting a car wash squeaky clean except for the blood dripping from a bullet hole in his forehead.
It’s a fascinating clash between the counterculture and a talent roster of Hollywood royalty, has-beens and never-weres. As hip as the film tries to be it still positions Carol Channing as the conduit between the hippies and the mob. This uneasy mix extended behind the scenes as well. Did neophyte screenwriter Cannon bow and scrape at the realization that his hippie ramblings were being given the brassy Technicolor treatment by legendary cinematographer Leon Shamroy?
During his opening remarks, John Philip Law dropped the fact that he had spent that afternoon at the Playboy Mansion. When he told Hef that he was attending a screening of Skidoo!, the soft core pornmeister recalled, “Isn’t that the one where they sing the credits.” Indeed, that is Skidoo’s main claim to fame. With Pendleton and Groucho adrift and enjoying a reefer, we freeze frame and hear the voice of Otto shout, “STOP! Before you skidoo…” followed by Harry Nilsson’s musical rendition of the end credits.
There’s a sense of loss each time I add an unseen title to my master list, particularly when it completes a director’s filmography. No matter how much pleasure and (unintentional) laughter Skidoo! brought forth, as of last Sunday, unless they unearth his early German work, I will never again see anything new by Otto Preminger.
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8/4/07
dear scott,
thanks for sending your review of skidoo. now i understand what i saw at the aero that evening and all the amazing events surrounding the film. you’re a good writer. appreciated meeting rick.
best wishes,
eliz.