Dirty Duck (aka Down And Dirty Duck) released in 1974 was a low-budget attempt to cash-in on the success of Fritz The Cat that manages to stake out its own turf in the X-rated cartoons featuring anthropomorphic animals genre. Directed by Charles Swenson and featuring the voices and music of Flo and Eddie, as well as Aynsley Dunbar, Don Preston and other members of The Mothers Of Invention, Dirty Duck is to Daffy what Charles Bukowski is to Ogden Nash.

From The Deuce:

Willard Eisenbaum (Voiced by Howard Kaylan) is a day-dreaming insurance worker who thinks he’s about to have the day of this life when he expresses his love to a fellow worker. When Willard’s intentions fail to materialize, he’s told by his boss to investigate an insurance claim from the elderly Martha (Lurene Tuttle). When Martha suddenly kicks the bucket during Willard’s visit, her will says that the one who causes her death (Confirmed by a Ouija board) will have to overlook her duck…Make that a grown, talking Duck! (Voiced by Mark Volman) Within seconds, both Willard and The Duck are hitting the streets, brothels, and tons of indescribable locations to get laid. By the time the film ends (Which is rather quickly) Willard will appear to be in love…But with whom? Or What?”

Within the raunchy confines of Dirty Duck’s universe lurks many pop culture references, including several that conjure up the spirit of Frank Zappa.

There are a few Zappa references peppered throughout the movie. For one, the duck is roughly the same character that Jeff Simmons morphed into in 200 Motels. At one point the main character and the duck are lost in the desert, and the duck is explaining how he came to be a duck. He says he used to be a TURTLE, but that wasn’t too happening, so he got some advice from his MOTHER and he just sort of FLO’d from there. If by any chance these references are too subtle for the more chemically aided members of the audience, at this point a cartoon version of Frank Zappa’s grimacing visage is looming over the entire scene, having just risen like the sun over the horizon. Hereupon Willard says: “Oh, Eddie, you have GOT to be kidding”, in reference to Zappa’s song Eddie Are You Kidding?.  Later, 200 Motels is specifically namedropped. It’s almost as if this movie is a sequel to 200 Motels, sans Zappa involvement.” P. Neve

“You can’t do this to me! I was at Woodstock in ‘69. I saw “200 Motels”! I know who I am!” Dirty Duck.

Its not surprising that Dirty Duck evokes 200 Motels. Both films were produced by Murakami-Wolf Productions, who also produced the Harry Nilsson flick The Point.

Dirty Duck is a foul fowl so be prepared for some freaky, offensive and politically incorrect humor. This is one fucked-up duck. 
 

 
Vice editor Rocco Castoro interviewed the 85-year-old Magus of American cinema, Kenneth Anger at the ritzy Cicada restaurant in downtown Los Angeles:

VICE: Looking back at the films of the silent era, the way they were shot and cut make it seem like everyone was snorting massive lines right up until the director yelled, “Action!”

I find film style reflects it, particularly the Mack Sennett [the director largely responsible for the popularity of slapstick] comedies. And my research proves that they were taking cocaine. You can see a sort of hyper-influence there.

VICE: There are lots of tales that make reference to “joy powder” in Hollywood Babylon, which makes it seem as innocent as taking one of those 5-hour Energy shots. Another phrase you use in the book, in the first few pages, is the “Purple Epoch.” What is that? It sounds nice.

That was when there were very talented people who also had extravagant tastes and money. It was the 1920s, a reflection of the Jazz Age. And the Hollywood version of that was pretty wild.

VICE: Another topic you cover early on in the book is the circumstances surrounding the death of Olive Thomas, which is perhaps the first instance of “Hollywood scandal” as we know it. You write, and it’s long been rumored, that she was very fond of cocaine, which was apparently a fatal flaw when combined with alcohol and ingesting her husband Jack Pickford’s topical syphilis medication.

She was one of the earliest beautiful stars to die in grim circumstances. And so her name became associated with lurid [behavior]. Things going on in Hollywood.

VICE: Her death also seemed to pull the wool from everyone’s eyes. Olive Thomas’s image was so sweet and pure. It caused Hollywood’s reputation to snowball into something far darker than how it was previously perceived. People must have thought, “If Olive’s doing it, everyone else must be too.”

There were other ones too, like Mary Miles Minter [who was accused of murdering her lover, director William Desmond Taylor, at the height of her success]. She was a kind of version of Mary Pickford [Jack Pickford’s sister], but the great stars like Pickford were never touched. These scandals swirled around, but there were certain stars that weren’t implicated in any way by this sort of thing.

 
Werner Herzog has terrible gaydar! Maybe the worst ever.

They’ve been friends for thirty-five years!
 

 
Thank you Edward Ludvigsen!

 
Philip K. Dick wrote an excited letter to Jeff Walker, at the Ladd Company, after watching a television preview of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, the film version of his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

October 11, 1981

Mr. Jeff Walker,
The Ladd Company,
4000 Warner Boulevard,
Burbank,
Calif. 91522.

Dear Jeff,

I happened to see the Channel 7 TV program “Hooray For Hollywood” tonight with the segment on BLADE RUNNER. (Well, to be honest, I didn’t happen to see it; someone tipped me off that BLADE RUNNER was going to be a part of the show, and to be sure to watch.) Jeff, after looking—and especially after listening to Harrison Ford discuss the film—I came to the conclusion that this indeed is not science fiction; it is not fantasy; it is exactly what Harrison said: futurism. The impact of BLADE RUNNER is simply going to be overwhelming, both on the public and on creative people—and, I believe, on science fiction as a field. Since I have been writing and selling science fiction works for thirty years, this is a matter of some importance to me. In all candor I must say that our field has gradually and steadily been deteriorating for the last few years. Nothing that we have done, individually or collectively, matches BLADE RUNNER. This is not escapism; it is super realism, so gritty and detailed and authentic and goddam convincing that, well, after the segment I found my normal present-day “reality” pallid by comparison. What I am saying is that all of you collectively may have created a unique new form of graphic, artistic expression, never before seen. And, I think, BLADE RUNNER is going to revolutionize our conceptions of what science fiction is and, more, can be.

Let me sum it up this way. Science fiction has slowly and ineluctably settled into a monotonous death: it has become inbred, derivative, stale. Suddenly you people have come in, some of the greatest talents currently in existence, and now we have a new life, a new start. As for my own role in the BLADE RUNNER project, I can only say that I did not know that a work of mine or a set of ideas of mine could be escalated into such stunning dimensions. My life and creative work are justified and completed by BLADE RUNNER. Thank you..and it is going to be one hell of a commercial success. It will prove invincible.

Cordially,

Philip K. Dick

The tragedy is PKD never saw the finished version of the classic science fiction film, as he died 5 months later, on March 2, 1982, just months before Blade Runner was given its cinematic release.
 

 
With thanks to Jai Bia
 

 
According to the great director Fritz Lang, it was his meeting with Joseph Goebbels, the Mad Man of Nazi propaganda, that led him to flee Germany the very same day.

As Lang tells it, this fateful meeting came sometime around Goebbels’ ban on Lang’s 1933 film, The Testament of Dr Mabuse, which was outlawed for its veiled attack on Hitler and his vile policies. Amongst the oft quoted similarities between Lang’s film and the insane Furher, was Dr. Mabuse’s devilish plan for a 1,000 years of crime, and Hitler’s desire of a 1,000 year Reich. The unstated connection between brutal criminality and looney-tunes Nazis was there for all to see.

It’s a good story, but one that has little bearing on fact, as it now appears that the meeting never took place. Goebbels’ diaries have no mention of the alleged meeting, and Lang’s escape from the jackboot of National-Socialism didn’t happen until several months after the alleged job offer from Dr Joe.

More damaging in hindsight was Lang’s failure to make any reference to his own Jewish ancestry. His mother, Paula was Jewish, though she converted to Catholicism after marrying Lang’s father, Anton. Instead Fritz described himself as an “Austrian director”, at a time when the persecution of those of Jewish faith was a brutal reality on the streets of Germany. Indeed describing himself as an “Austrian director” could have been construed as aligning himself with the birth country of the Furher.

Later, while living in the safety of the United States, Lang said in his entry for Current Biography - “While many famous Jewish directors had to flee Germany because of the ‘Aryan’ work decrees, Lang, a Christian, fled only because he is a believer in democratic government.”

Okay, so Lang could argue that man made laws had no rule over him, as he believed in the Higher Court of his Christian God. Fine. But why persist in re-telling a fanciful tale forty years on?

Almost everyone tells lies, and the lies are not important. Some people are loved because of their ability to tell great lies, and we listen expectantly for them to tell their biggest and best whoppers. And so it is with Lang, as he tells tale after tale in this entertaining and immensely watchable interview with director of The Exorcist, William Friedkin. From running away from home, to surviving by his wits, to making his classic films Metropolis and M, to meetings with criminals and murderers - one killer kept the hands of victims under his bed, to his meeting with the Nazi Mad Man, to Hollywood and after, Lang, looking rather like Dr Strangelove, describes his hugely fantastic life.
 

 
With thanks to Wendy James
 

 
The anniversary of Dick Shawn’s death was yesterday (April 17) and I had intended to share this then, but there’s been so many posts about people dying here on Dangerous Minds that I held off. But fuck it, I love this video too much to sit on it. And any mention of Shawn is better than none at all, even if it is in the context of his dying. And Shawn’s dying, sad as it was, was also totally surreal - much like the man himself.

From Wikipedia:

In a stand-up routine in San Diego in April 1987 he was portraying a politician, saying “if elected, I will not lay down on the job.” Then he fell face-down onto the stage. The audience thought it was part of the act and laughed, but after a few moments of silence, someone came onstage, checked him out, and called into the audience for a doctor. Shawn had suffered a massive heart attack. He was dead.

Even as he was receiving CPR on stage, the audience was not sure whether it was part of the act or not, but they began to leave after paramedics arrived. Most of them were unaware that he had died until they read the notices in the morning’s paper.

Here’s Shawn as the tripped-out beatnik Lorenzo St. DuBois in the movie The Producers. The song “Love Power” is kinda punk, ain’t it?

And I give a flower to the big fat cop,
he takes his club and he beats me up.
I give a flower to the garbage man,
he stuffs my girl in the garbage can.
And I give it to the landlord, when the rent comes ‘round.
He throws it in the toilet and he flush it down.
It goes into the sewer with the yuck running through her,
And it runs into the river that we drink.
Hey world, you stink!

Shawn was a “hipster” before the term became a dirty word.
 

A young Ice-T by Glen E. Friedman

Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap, Ice-T’s upcoming big budget performance documentary about the legends of rap has been generating a huge buzz since its Sundance premiere.

Dangerous Minds pal Glen. E. Friedman says:

“This is going to be the biggest documentary of all time! I saw it, I know!”

Something from Nothing: features Chuck D, Dana Dane, Ice Cube,Kanye West,  Mos Def, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Eminem, KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa, Common, Anthony ‘Treach’ Criss, Doug E. Fresh, Rakim, Joseph Simmons, Cheryl ‘Salt’ James, Big Daddy Kane,  MC Lyte, Marley Marl,  Kool Keith, Darryl McDaniels, Melle Mel, Nas, Q-Tip and many others.

Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap is in theaters on June 15th.
 

 
The Beatles uniquely comic embellishment—it’s very “Goon Show”, isn’t it?—of Rossini’s “Barber of Seville Overture.” I’d rate this up there with the Bugs Bunny cover version!

From the end credits of Help!
 

 
One of the most unappreciated roles in the world is the role of the character actor. It’s a cruelty, since the character actors are the ones with the real personalities and true charisma. Traditional leading stars are so bland in comparison. The Wonder White Bread of acting. Sadly, we have lost one of the best of this wondrous breed, with the passing of actor William Finley. Truly one of the most wholly unique and talented actors, Finley made an impression on me the moment I first saw him in his brief but brilliant turn as drunken carny magician, Marco the Magnificent in Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse. The shock of blonde hair, half painted Dracula make-up and the way his voice just oozed whiskey-soaked malaise bordering on malice made a mighty impression on my then teenage self. It was love at first sight, leading me to discover some of his better known work, namely with director Brian DePalma.

Both Finley and DePalma were Sarah Lawrence alumni, with a collaboration dating back to the director’s earliest underground works. This includes 1968’s Murder a la Mod and 1970’s Dionysus in ‘69, a film of an experimental version of the ancient Greek play, “The Bacchae.” (Two days before I heard of his passing, I had actually found my long lost DVD copy of this film.) One of his best early roles was in DePalma’s excellent Hitchcockian (right down to the Bernard Herrmann score) Sisters. Playing Margot Kidder’s charismatically creepy Quebecois husband Emil, Finley, with slicked back hair and a thin mustache, cuts an unforgettable figure. Despite all of his borderline villainy, he still infuses enough humanity into the role to make you feel empathy for this weird character.

However, Finley’s best known role, in a very rare leading turn, was DePalma’s rock musical, Phantom of the Paradise. Playing the titular Phantom, Finley is Winslow Leech, a gangly and passionate struggling composer who has written a rock opera based on the old German legend of “Faust.” Life takes a turn for the worse for Winslow as his work gets shanghaied by rock and roll impresario Swan (Paul Williams, who was also responsible for the fantastic score). Life soon imitates art, with the presence of the sweet and beautiful Phoenix (Jessica Harper) to further the potential heartbreak and redemption.

Phantom is undoubtedly one of the best rock musicals ever and Finley is perfect as our unlikely hero, fleshing out Winslow, an awkward genius with a temper, into a poetic, warm blooded, tragic figure. This turned out to be Finley’s only major starring role, though he did follow it up with a memorable turn in Tobe Hooper’s EC Comics film come to life, Eaten Alive, where he gets to bark like a dog and threatens to put a cigarette out IN HIS EYE. There were also smaller roles in the obscure Alan Arkin comedy Simon, DePalma’s The Fury and even the Chuck Norris flick, Silent Rage.

Roles become a little more sparse, with a few parts cropping up, like the Christian zealot/archeologist father in the 1995 Tobe Hooper film, Night Terrors. (A movie notable for Finley, equal gender nudity and Robert Englund as the Marquis De Sade, which makes it sound way better than it is.) Finley was an actor who should have been better utilized by Hollywood and the film industry at large. Like too many artists worth their salt, he did not get his proper due while he was still here.

But instead of wallowing in any past injustice, let’s make a wrong a right and celebrate the strange,stark and superb work of William Finley. The man’s acting legacy deserves it and you deserve to watch some great acting and filmmaking

Recommended Viewing: Sisters, Eaten Alive, Phantom of the Paradise, The Funhouse, Murder a la Mod,

 
A retrospective of the work of film-maker Peter Watkins will take place at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), in Oslo, between the 7th and 14th May.

Watkins is a great and important film-maker, whose career spans over 5 decades and includes such works of brilliance as Culloden (1964), the story of an English massacre of the Scots, retold as an analogy to the Vietnam War; The War Game (1965), the essential banned drama of the after-affects of a nuclear war; Punishment Park (1970), a harrowing imagining of the National Guard pursuing members of the counter-culture; Edvard Munch (1973), Watkins’ personal take on the life of the artist; and La Commune (de Paris, 1871) (1999), an examination into the cause and effects of political interpretations of historical events, through the re-telling of revolution in France.

The retrospective will include screenings of Watkins’ key films, with a discussion of his work.

Peter Watkins: A Retrospective will start with the screening of Edvard Munch, Watkins’s film on three decades of the life of the artist, and will be followed by a public discussion in which the director will address, together with members of the cast and the technical team, the meaning of the film, both at the time it was released and today. Edvard Munch, considered by Watkins the most personal film he has ever made, dramatises three decades of the life of the artist and provides a raw and haunting portrait of the creative process as embedded within the spirit and the social relations of its time.

This will be followed by screenings of Watkins’s other Scandinavian projects, The Gladiators (1968), Evening Land (1976), and The Freethinker (1992–94), a biography of August Strindberg with four different timelines and a spiral structure that will be shown on the 100th anniversary of the artist, writer, and playwright’s death in 1912. Additional screenings will include The War Game (1965), Punishment Park (1970), and La Commune (de Paris, 1871) (1999), films in which the dramatisation of historical past or the present results in revealing political assessments that are at the same time critical reflections on filmic language, distribution networks, and media in general.

Central to much Watkins work is the role of mass media within society and its insidious effects. Here, in an interview from 2001, Watkins discusses the damaging role of mass media, in particular the misunderstanding in the role of mass communication, and how the contemporary media landscape allows little space for independent and critical thought. Though Watkins may sound like a man with bad indigestion, his thinking and analysis is clear and still hugely relevant.

Fop details of Peter Watkins: A Retrospective check here.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

‘The War Game’: Peter Watkins terrifying film from 1965