The Man Called Flintstone (1966)

[NOTE FROM SCOTT: Hi guys, just wanted to pop in and introduce a new contributor to WoC: Andrew Leal. I met Andrew through our old friend Ivan Shreve, Jr., and like Ivan he exhibits an encyclopedic knowledge of Old Stuff: Old Time Radio, classic films, Golden Age television, crappy Saturday morning cartoons, and lousy live action Disney flicks from the 1960s, as well as being unusually--perhaps even suspiciously--well-informed on the subject of Character Actors--so much so that he's become my go-to expert if I ever need to tell the difference between, say, a Charles Lane and an Olan Soulé. So please join me in welcoming Andrew to WoC, and enjoy this long-overdue critical reassessment, the first in a series we like to call, Flintstones on Film.]

By Andrew Leal

Ah, Hanna-Barbera. Creators of hat-and/or-tie wearing critters, masters of sitcom past and future, their output dominated TV cartoons for over thirty years. Having saturated the tube, they turned to theatrical features, first with the sprightly Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (1965). The follow-up was The Man Called Flintstone (1966), a considerably rockier (ahem) outing. 

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera never met a trend they wouldn't hop on or a formula they wouldn't copy (even their own, witness the many Scooby-Doo clones). In this case, there were two trends. One, which faded very rapidly, was half-hour TV shows stretched out for the big screen. This included not one but two McHale's Navy flicks and by 1966, moviegoers were faced with Munster, Go Home! as well as Thunderbirds Are Go and Batman (the latter influencing Man's villain, the masked and caped Green Goose).

Bigger than that was the spy craze, which was everywhere in every flavor: the Bond flicks, Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Avengers, the spoofery of Get Smart, and countless imitations and knockoffs. Heck, earlier in 1966, Our Man Flint (no relation) hit theaters. Cartoons got into it from Bullwinkle's Boris and Natasha (their voice actors Paul Frees and June Foray are both in Man) to HB 's own Secret Squirrel and a previous spyjinx outing of... The Flintstones (“Dr. Sinister” from the fifth season in 1964). That outing was a better and shorter spoof, with a villain who *is* green, jabs at “Jay Bondrock” movies, a bottomless pit, and instead of Dr. No, the sometime ally Madame Yes who conveniently abandons Fred and Barney repeatedly (“I'm too important to be captured!”).

The Man Called Flintstone doesn't just rehash the spy stuff, but another plot (done twice on the show): Fred swapping places with an identical double in a position of importance. (When Bill and Joe recycle, they recycle!) But repeating seems fitting, as the series had just moved into almost perpetual reruns a few months prior. Apart from plot devices, also returning are the voices of modern stone-age family: Alan Reed (radio veteran with supporting parts in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Breakfast at Tiffanys) as Fred, and Mel Blanc taking a break from Bugs Bunny to play Barney Rubble, Dino, and assorted bits and beasties. Jean Vander Pyl is Wilma and Pebbles (though arguably her best HB role was Rosie the Robot on The Jetsons), but Bea Benaderet had jumped boxcars to Petticoat Junction, so we have Gerry Johnson as the second, less giggly Betty Rubble.

Even the new spy characters were cast from the series: Harvey Korman, pre-Carol Burnett and then the insufferable Great Gazoo on the home show, plays mostly straight as the government spy boss (“Chief Boulder,” of course) and less so as a Peter Lorre-esque henchman who in moments of excitement starts muttering “bali ha'i” thus revealing himself as the very first South Pacific fan.

But hush, the “it's a living” prehistoric birds are starting the projector, and The Man Called Flintstone begins. The best gag of all is cut from the DVD and current streaming/TV versions due to ownership changes: Wilma in place of the torch lady in the Columbia logo. Then we get the obligatory stylized credits (take that, Saul Bass!) and ballad about our hero's prowess (“he thrives on a diet of daaaanger!”) which is actually pretty fun.

The movie proper (such as it is) opens with an all-too brief burst of near excitement, reminiscent of Jonny Quest (HB's best adventure effort): volcanos erupt, a feral pterodactyl flies overhead, and we watch a car chase between what appears to be Fred and a pair of swarthily painted thugs, Ali and Bobo (Korman and Paul Frees, both with dialects).

By sixties spy movie rules, henchman had to be racial stereotypes who you knew were bad mainly because they were foreign or wore funny hats.

But no, the pursued is actually top agent Rock Slag (Frees in a Don Adams imitation, one of the better gags), who not only looks just like Fred but is wearing the same goatskin outfit and tie (how's that for sitcom cowinkydinks). Rock is ambushed twice by the Green Goose's goons, in action sequences played fairly straight (but also pretty dull, as far as cartoon cavemen receiving grievous bodily harm).

By the laws of sitcom coincidence, Slag is recovering at the only hospital in Bedrock (despite the high rate of boulder and dinosaur-related injuries) while Fred Flintstone is having his head examined (really). The chief goes all Prince and the Pauper and dupes Fred into “picking up a bird” for the government, with the carrot of an all expense paid trip to Eurock (except the actual countries remain un-stone aged: Italy, France, etc.) Fred is asked to take his place to meet a defecting lady agent Tanya (when she finally shows up, she's voiced by June Foray in Natasha mode) to lead him to this green bird.

During Fred's briefing, we get our first song cue (five more to come!) They stop the action cold every time, and most are hallucinations or dreams. The one here, picturing Fred as a suave spy, is catchier and better illustrated than most, including some gorgeous dames who aren't so modern stone age.

There's also a lyric about Fred using karate chops to send a bad guy “beddy bye,” but the visuals show him clearly pushing up petunias. This is the closest the movie gets to a body count, so enjoy it while you can.

After yet another song, Eurock, here we come! Wilma, the Rubbles, and the kids all come along. The familys' pets Dino and Hoppy the Hopparoo were already checked in at the vet's (Hoppy wouldn't be seen again for decades, so I guess Barney forgot to pick him up). On the plane, the Rubbles have last class accommodations (which means riding on the wing and hanging on for dear life), but the bigger surprise was this bit of prehistoric product placement: the plane belongs to Qantas airlines.

There's sitcomish complications in that Rock Slag, despite being identical to Fred, is a chick magnet, attracting a bevy of high-cheeked cartoon babes mostly meant to resemble the kind of European starlets that would show up in the real spy flicks. I couldn't quite decide if one lady was meant to be Elke Sommerstone or Brickette Bardot.

And still the songs continue. Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm get two treacly imaginary ballads (one with lyrics like “Tickle toddle”)...

...and guest vocalist Louis Prima croons an imagine spot of Fred and Wilma as Romeo and Juliet, in Shakespearean garb and a not-made-of-rocks balcony. One of the kids' songs imagines a knight and a dragon (as well as a Wild West sheriff and a fake Superman). So they're all imagining the future!

In between songs, the characters get what would be location footage in live-action, but here is just someone drawing a twig version of the Eiffel Tower or Fred careening on the Coliseum. The movie also pauses for TV-style gags (Wilma changes a tire just so a turtle jack voiced by Mel can make a wisecrack) which also slows things down.

Visually it's better looking than the show itself, but it's actually below Hey There, It's Yogi Bear. 

The intermittent action such as it is finally culminates in a showdown with the Green Goose of Paradise at your typical abandoned amusement park hideout, the better to do a chase on rollercoaster cars and into a funhouse mirror (stuff which would actually be pretty exciting in live-action, but for cartoon figures, there's a touch of “That's it?”)  But there are pluses here and there, mostly in the solid voice cast and the background art. There's a gas station with mammoths labeled Ethyl and Regular.

The Green Goose's lair has genuinely morbid flair (and Barney subjected to the rack).

Even the score suddenly gets into it, with a brief snatch of “Funeral March of a Marionette” from Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

But beyond this, the spy stuff is often boringly straight, with chase after chase. The government agency so incompetent it could have been satire (but isn't), although there is this Dr. Strangelove-esque line, in reference to the Goose's deadly missile: “Our anti-missile missile isn't operational yet.” And of course, the Chief's bed has been bugged (why a government agency keeps a bed in his apparently floating office is of course not addressed).

There's also more throwaway gags involving Fred's rear end than one would have expected...

...or desired.

Mostly it just meanders, goes on too long, and just feels phoned in. More heart and effort went into Hey There, It's Yogi Bear, which has better visuals and manages to make one care about the fate of a hat and tie-wearing bear (dealing with typically scheming circus folk and their proto-Muttley dog and the perils of the city). Here, the most genuinely frightening peril Fred faces is an Italian woman and her burly brother who try to force him into marriage (and have absolutely nothing to do with the spy stuff). And yet Hanna-Barbera could produce a cover for the tie-in album which is miles above the movie, perhaps because it doesn't involve anything moving.

Overall, it's the definition of a movie for people who liked the show, or just want to park the kiddies to watch a barefooted neanderthal imperil his marriage on vague government dictates. But at least the end credits are cute, right?

You Better Watch Out!

By Bill S.

The holiday season is upon us once again, and that means it's that time of years for Christmas carols, gift shopping, tons of cookies, and of course, TV special. A few years back, Scott and I both revisited the Rankin-Bass classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This year, I've decided to have a look at another Rankin-Bass childhood favorite, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Like the previous one, it boasts good production values, nice music...and a story so insane you wonder what they were smoking when they made it.

It begins with newsreel footage of children preparing for Santa's Christmas Eve visit, then cuts to a postman, riding a snowmobile en route to the North Pole. His name is S.D. Kruger, and he informs us that the "S.D." stands for "Special Delivery", but I'm guessing it doesn't stand for anything and he just makes up something different to fit the occasion, like T.S. Garp did. S.D. is voiced by Fred Astaire (hiring a brilliant dancer to do voiceover work makes as much sense as anything else in this special). When the snowmobile stalls in a snow bank, he has a lot of free time, so he tells us about the letters kids write to Santa Claus, revealing that he opens their mail and reads it before delivering it, which can't possibly be legal. According to him, in addition to the usual requests for toys, kids ask a lot of questions about Santa: "Why do you wear a red suit?" "Why do you come down the chimney?" "How do you know if we've been bad or good?", etc. We hear a lot of children, off-camera. They might simply be voices in S.D.'s head, which is preferable to a bunch of kids being stranded in a frozen wasteland. Real or imaginary, he tells them to settle down, and spins for us a tale of Santa's origin.

It begins in a bleak, depressing place called Sombertown, presided by the Mayor, the Burgermeister Meisterburger, a squat, ugly man with a thick German accent and a permanent scowl on his face. His dinner is interrupted one day by the appearance of Grimsley, described as "the lawkeeper" (Police chief? Army general? Ancestor of Wayland Smithers?). Grimsley sports a Kaiser helmet, a pencil thin mustache, and a prissy British accent. He also brings with him a baby, found on the Murgerbeister's doorstop. There's no identification, other than a name tag reading "Claus" and a note, asking the Burgerchedder to raise the baby. (And really, who wouldn't want to leave their kid with that guy?) Of course he refuses, and tells Grimsley to take the baby to the "Orphan Asylum", which, according to him, is "the proper place for foundlings" (I'm guessing "foundling" is a euphemism for "bastard").

Grimsley heads for the orphanage, dragging baby Claus on a sled, because I guess pulling a bulky object through the snow during a blizzard is easier than simply carrying a baby. The rope breaks, and the sled is carried away by a heavy wind. Grimsley half-heartedly races after it, calling out, "Do come back!" (Even as a kid, I thought that was a stupid thing to say). After making the barest minimum effort to rescue baby Claus, Grimsley gives him up for dead and heads back home. Fortunately, the animals of the forest are able to rescue Baby Claus, shielding him from the dreaded Winter Warlock. They bring him to the home of an elf family, the Kringles, leaving him on their doorstop. The baby is discovered by brothers Ringle, Dingle, Wingle, Tingle and Zingle, who immediately take a liking to him and bring him to the Elf Queen, Tanta Kringle, a sweet-voiced old lady with a perennially cheery demeanor. She decides they should adopt the baby, naming him Kris Kringle. There are cheers all around over this decision.

The elves raise the boy, and while they home school him, the animals of the forest are in charge of P.E., teaching him to run, jump, and laugh like a seal. They also school him in the family business: toy making. According to Tanta Kringle, the Kringles were well known for their fine craftsmanship, as she explains in the musical number "The First Toy Makers To the King". She doesn't explain how they went from being internationally known toy makers, working for royalty, to living in a tiny shack in the middle of nowhere. I can't imagine the elves blowing their earning on hookers and coke. (Well, to be more precise, I don't want to imagine that). But the real reason might be that they have no way to transport the toys, so they just keep piling them up on the porch, which doesn't seem like the best way to run a successful business.

Years pass, and Kris grows into a young man, sounding like Mickey Rooney, only taller. He decides it's time to deliver the toys to actual people, which delights the family. Tanta even makes him a red suit like the ones the elves wear. He kisses Tanta, bids goodbye to Jingle, Pringle, Single, Mingle and Der Bingle, then gathers the toys in a sack and heads for Sombertown.

Along the way he meets up with a stranded penguin, who was headed for the South Pole, but apparently took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. He names the bird Topper, and adopts him as a pet. Together, they manage to get away from the Winter Warlock, who lives in the Mountain of the Whispering Wind. As a kid, I found the Warlock scary, but he doesn't actually do anything but cackle maniacally and issue threats in a booming voice.( I guess when you're six, that's plenty scary.)
Meanwhile, in Sombertown, the Burgerurger suffers a fall down the steps of City Hall. When he discovers the cause was a toy left on the steps, he decides to ban all toys, and, in a parody of Tanta Kringle's song, he describes the various ways he'd like to mutilate them. Having all toys outlawed over a minor, avoidable injury seems like a rather extreme reaction; I guess we should be glad he didn't trip on a banana peel, because then all the Sombertownians would be condemned to a life of severe potassium deficiency. 

Kris finally arrives in Sombertown, and doesn't make much of a favorable impression with his colorful clothes and cheery disposition. He seems baffled that inhabitants of a place called Sombertown are a bunch of crabby assholes. When he explains that he just wants to distribute some toys, they all go apeshit and run back home, locking their doors. He comes upon a couple of kids who are washing socks. They look completely miserable, as any kid would, and he scolds them for it. He then cheers them up by offering them toys. They spread the news to some other kids, and pretty soon they're all flocking to this friendly stranger. Miss Jessica, the school teacher, comes upon this scene and explains to Kris that toys are illegal, and at first tries to defend the law. When Kris, who finds this law ridiculous, hands her a china doll, she acknowledges that the law is stupid, and agrees to help him hand out the toys. Kris expresses the joy of giving in a song:

If you sit on my lap today
A kiss a toy is the price you'll pay
If you sit on my left knee
Don't be stingy! Be prepared to pay!

WHAT. THE. FUCK? It sounds like a pedophile anthem. Which may be the reason it was cut from the most recent televised broadcast of the special.

The Burgerchef intrudes on this happy scene. He's ready to have the children arrested until Kris rushes to their defense, claiming responsibility for the toys. He then gives the BrentMussburger a yo-yo, which delights the old man, until Grimsley reminds him that he's breaking his own law. Flustered and embarrassed, he urges the police to arrest Kris, who escapes by climbing up a tree and hopping from rooftop to rooftop until he reaches the forest, and finally racing away. The policemen take one look at the woods where Kris disappeared, decide it's not worth the trouble to go after him, and return to Sombertown. What efficient law enforcement they are. (Incidentally, while everyone is impressed by the skill with which Kris eludes capture, nobody mentions that Topper, a tiny penguin, was able to keep up with him the whole way.)

Kris and Topper make their way to the Mountain of the Whispering Wind, and are captured by a pair of Tree Monsters. The Winter Warlock threatens to destroy them, but Kris pleads with him to be let go, offering him a present. The Warlock, touched by this gesture, orders the trees to release him. When Kris hands the Warlock a toy train, his icy heart melts, and he feels reborn, He wonders how long that feeling will last, but Kris assures him that making a change from bad to good is as easy as walking, in a toe tapping number, "Put One Foot In Front of the Other".

(The lesson to be learned here is that it's easier to reform a centuries old evil wizard than a grouchy old man with a sprained ankle.) Winter (as he's now called) strikes a bargain: in exchange for more toys, he'll teach Kris some of his magic tricks, including the Magic Crystal Snowball, which allows he to see and hear people far away. Kris gazes into it, and sees Miss Jessica wandering in the woods calling for him. He finds her, and discovers that the children want more toys to replace the ones Burmashaver had destroyed. He agrees to this, and she kisses him, causing him to blush.

When the Boogiemaster discovers the children have toys again, he calls for all the homes of Sombertown to be locked during the night. Kris is discouraged by this, until Topper, through a series of gestures, gives him the idea to go down the chimney. This enrages the Masterblaster even further, so he demands that the police go from house to house searching for toys. (This might be a good time to point out that the animation was outsourced to Germany, which possibly explains why the police look like Nazis). 

With the doors locked the night, and daily searches of homes by the police, Kris wonders how he'll be able to get more toys to the children. He should probably be more concerned with the human rights abuses going on in the town, but I suppose when you have several decades worth of toys piled up in front of your house, finding a way to get rid of them might feel like a bigger priority. So he comes up with the idea of hiding the toys in the children's stockings, which are hung above the fireplace to dry, on the not unreasonable assumption that no police officer will want to stick his hand inside a wet, crusty sock. His instinct prove correct, and once again the kids have toys to play with. This proves to be the last straw for the Murkinblister, so he decides to lay a trap for Kris, arranging for police officers to lay in wait at one of the houses to arrest him. At first Kris protests, but when he looks out a window and sees another officer holding Topper in one hand and a jar of barbecue sauce in the other, he goes quietly. Meanwhile, officers are dispatched to the Mountain of the Whispering Wind, where they arrest Winter, Tanta Kringle, Jangle, Bangle, Spangle, Tangle and Dangle, as accomplices to Kris' crimes. All of them are thrown in jail. The Megabastard then gathers up all the toys in a pile and lights them on fire, in front of the children, who are all reduced to sobbing messes. (Since Kris warned against them crying, but didn't mention any exceptions to that rule, those poor kids must think they're really screwed.)

Jessica goes to the Burgermerger and tries to make plea on behalf of the prisoners, asking him to let them go. When he refuses to listen to reason, she has an epiphany: Sombertown really, really sucks. (We figured this out in the first five minutes) She expresses her newfound clarity in the song "My World Is Beginning Today", which is my favorite number in the show, partly because the song is pretty, and partly because the visuals are so utterly weird. Here, watch:

It's like tripping on acid with Petula Clark -- which is why it's my favorite number in the show. The most recent broadcast of the special omitted this entire sequence. When it was being carried on cable, the conversation between Jessica and the Meister Bräu was retained, but the song was cut down to the final two lines, which was jarring for those of us who remembered it, and probably more so for first time viewers. (Lesson learned: Cable networks are such greedy assholes they'll sacrifice plot continuity for two more minutes' worth of advertising time. But you already knew that.)

Jessica visits the jail, and asks Winter if he has any magic that might help them get out. Alas, his magic mojo is off, and all he has is a handful of magic feed corn that enables reindeer to fly. This seems like an oddly specific thing for anyone to be carrying around in their pocket, even a wizard. Jessica takes the corn and feeds it to some reindeer. Sure enough it works -- they soar into the sky and fly to the jail, where they free Kris, Winter, Topper, Tanta Kringle, Mango, Tango, Django, Durango and Fandango. (Wait, TOPPER? They threw the penguin in jail?) It's not clear how the reindeer managed to get in the jail cell, unless it has no roof, which seems like a major design flaw.

The group (along with Jessica, who has joined them) are now on the run from the Sombertown police. Wanted posters bearing Kris Kringle's likeness are plastered everywhere. But Kris has now altered his appearance by growing a heavy beard. Tanta Kringle suggests he stop using the family name, and go by his birth name, "Claus". (Oddly, nobody wonders whether that's his first or last name. I guess he's a one-named celebrity, like Cher.) 

Kris and Jessica are married in the forest, under some stars, on Christmas Eve. There's no minister officiating, but they "stood before the Lord", which I guess is enough for a trailer park-style common law marriage. Hoping to make the ceremony special by lighting up the trees, Winter prays to Jesus for a little more magic. It works. (Kids, don't try that at home -- at least not in front of your parents.)

In order to evade the police force of one little town, the group treks all the way to the North Pole, where Kris decides they should build a new home, and the best toy factory in the world. And so they do, although how they accomplished that in such an isolated region remains a mystery. (Did the Kringles assemble an entire house with their little hammers?)

Kris continues to deliver toys to all the children of the world. Because of his outlaw status, he still has to make these deliveries in the dark of night. Years pass, his legend grows, and his outlaw status changes when the Burgermeisters die off and people realize the toy ban is stupid. Now too old to keep making frequent deliveries, Kris decides to limit his trips to one night a year, and picks that holiest of night, Christmas Eve. And that's the whole...

WAIT A COTTON-PICKIN' MINUTE, BACK UP HERE!!! 

The Burgermeisters "died off"? That was an inherited title? So, at some point, years after this story took place, the Bugermeister Majorbugfuck had a kid? Really? That fucking guy?

With who? I can't imagine anyone having sex with him. (Well, to be more exact, I don't want to imagine that.)

So, to recap, here are the answers to the questions asked by the children at the start of the show:

"Why is Santa Claus sometimes called Kris Kringle?" He was adopted by an elf family named Kringle. "Claus" is his birth name. The "Santa" part was added when people decided to canonize him even though he isn't dead, because why wait?

"Why does Santa wear a red suit?" It's the uniform of his elf family.

"How did he learn to make toys?" Again, the elves.

"How does he see us when we're sleeping, and know when we're awake?" He learned black magic from a born-again demon.

"Why does he visit homes by going down the chimney?" A penguin suggested it.

"Why does he leave toys in stockings?" To hide them in case Nazis search your house, a problem that still persists to this day.

"Why does he have a beard?" So he wouldn't be recognized by the police. Of course, today he'd have to shave it for that to happen.

"Speaking of beards, how did he meet Mrs.Claus?" After spending his entire life (well into adulthood) living with five old men and his adopted mother, and having had zero contact with any other human beings, he married literally the first single woman he met.

"How does he make reindeer fly?" Magic corn, which contradicts what we saw in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, where they were a race of metas who could fly, talk, and apply false eyelashes.

"Why does Santa visit us on Christmas Eve?" Because he figured it would be easier to deliver gifts to all the children of the world in one night, instead of spacing things out in multiple trips.

"Why didn't the parents of Sombertown rise together in disgust, and kick the living shit out of the Burgermeister?"

Oh, wait, that wasn't a question on the show. That was my question.

Merry Christmas to all of you, from all of me!

The Fifth Annual SKELLY Awards!

By Bill S.

The Academy awards are airing this Sunday night, but before we see who'll take home a golden statuette, it's time for one more pre-Oscar award: The SKELLY.  Each year, I look through the year's nominees in the four acting categories (excluding any past SKELLY winners/contenders), and determine who among them has the most embarrassing prior role, for which they win the not-so-coveted "Skeleton In the Closet". This requires a certain amount of research, including actually watching bad movies, which sometimes leads to a dead end--in Michael Shannon's case, literally. When I learned he appeared in Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice, I assumed he'd be a shoe-in, until I sat through the damn thing, all the way to the end, and found out he only appears in it for a few seconds, as a corpse, which means he fared better than literally everyone else in it. And there are some stars whose acting resumes just don't contain any true embarrassments. I'm afraid Ryan Gosling will never qualify for a SKELLY, which puts him in the same company as Dame Judy Dench...

"...albeit for slightly different reasons"

But before we get to this year's winners, let's look at the runners-up.

7th place: EMMA STONE. Ryan Gosling's frequent co-star -- the ginger Ginger to his Fred, the Hepburn to his Tracy, the Chong to his Cheech -- is one of the hottest young actresses around. Like Ryan, she got her start as a teen, but unlike Ryan, whose teen years were spent on the star-making '90's incarnation of The Mickey Mouse Club, Emma (then billed as Emily) did time on a reality show called In Search of The Partridge Family. As the title suggests, it was a competition series focused on finding cast members for a proposed reboot of The Partridge Family. Emma was one of the young hopefuls vying for the part of Laurie, and actually won it.  She and the other winners filmed a pilot, The New Partridge Family and...absolutely nothing happened. The pilot didn't get sold. I can't find any footage of it, and the only surviving footage from the competition series that I could find was this 30-second clip of Emma auditioning with a wobbly rendition of Meredith Brooks' "Bitch" (a song no 15 year old girl should be singing)

Emma probably does feel a little ashamed.

6th place: NICOLE KIDMAN . Like Emma, Nicole began acting as a teenager, beginning in the 1983 TV movie Skin Game. Most of her work in the '80's was on Australian TV, and when I was perusing those early ones I ran across a 1987 TV movie about teens involved in martial arts games called Nightmaster, which sounded ludicrous. But it turned out to be enjoyable; entertaining trash as opposed to dismal trash. And Ms. Kidman is quite good -- tough, sexy, confident, good humored -- in fact, if you're a fan you'll get a kick out this on-her-way-to being-a-star-role. (Here's the link to the whole movie)

With that flick out of the running, her most embarrassing role is actually the first of her three films with future ex-husband Tom Cruise: Days of Thunder. I have to confess something: I haven't seen this movie since it came out in 1990, and I don't really remember a whole lot of it. I did buy the soundtrack because I liked the songs by Elton John and Maria McKee, but it wouldn't be the first, or last time I bought a soundtrack to movie I found otherwise negligible.

However, Scott and Sheri covered this exhaust-belch of a film rather exhaustively in Better Living Through Bad Movies, in the chapter entitled Live Fast, Die Young, And Leave a Bad-Looking Movie, highlighting certain flaws it had, including the one that stuck out most for me back then: the casting of then 23-year old Nicole as a neurosurgeon.  She was hand-picked by star Tom Cruise himself, after the part had been turned down by more than a dozen other actresses, most of whom were also far too young -- only Kim Basinger, then 36, was remotely age-appropriate. There was really no way to sell an audience on this ridiculous role. Ever the artist, Ms. Kidman actually planned to read up on the topic of neurosurgery, but was told by the director she'd be wasting her time. The movie wasn't all that interested in realism anyway. It was allegedly inspired by real-life race car driver Tim Richmond, but any connection to any real person was tenuous at best -- this story was sanitized for your rejection.

5th place: CASEY AFFLECK.  He made his acting debut at age 12 in the TV adaptation of Lanford Wilson's Lemon Sky, and frequently works with older brother Ben Affleck, brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix, and brother-from-another-mother Matt Damon, who produced Manchester By the Sea, his best film role to date. But sandwiched in between such prestige roles was a 1999 movie that trapped him, Ben, and a number of other young-up-and-comers in the worst New Year's Eve ever: 200 Cigarettes. Set in 1981 (and boasting some great oldies of the day by the likes of Elvis Costello, Blondie, the Go-Go's and others), the story jumps from one set of characters to another, all on their way to a New Year's Eve party, desperately hoping for some excitement and romance. Casey and Guillermo Diaz (sporting a giant mop of orange hair) play a pair of roadies who meet up with a pair of Lawn Guyland teenagers (Christina Ricci and Gaby Hoffman seem to be competing for best impression of Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny) and like the rest of the characters, very little happens between them. How best to describe this movie? Well, have you ever looked forward to a holiday hoping something cool and fun would happen, only to have the night feel like a total bust? This movie captures the full blown sense of "that's it?" from the opening frame and sustains that level of dejection for 101 minutes.

 "13 characters in search of a decent subplot."

 4th Place: VIOLA DAVIS. Considered this year's sure bet to win Best Supporting Actress (although Donald Trump is rooting for Hattie McDaniel). Viola seems like one of the most gifted actresses around; she managed, after all, with just a couple of scenes, to steal the entire movie Doubt -- a picture that contained Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Philip Seymour Hoffman. I wouldn't have imagined she'd be in the running for a Skelly, But then I  ran across an obscure 2001 flick titled The Shrink Is In.

Okay, I'm going to do my best to describe the plot of this thing in a way that makes sense: Star Courtney Cox plays a travel journalist named Samantha who suffers a mental breakdown after her boyfriend dumps her. She's sent to a therapist (Carol Kane) who suffers a breakdown herself during a session with Samantha. After the doctor is carted away, Samantha, through a Wacky  Misunderstanding, is mistaken for the psychiatrist by a patient (David James Elliott) who turns out to be a neighbor Samantha is crushing on. Samantha decides to pose as a shrink to get closer to him, and to keep the ruse up, also councils other patients, including a flaky delivery man (David Arquette) who develops a crush on her. Since Cox and Arquette were married at the time and David James Elliott is the Brand X version of a real sex symbol, you know exactly how the whole mess will turn out. How does Viola Davis fit into all of this, you may ask? She plays Samantha's best friend and the movie's voice of reason (because what else would she be?) which means her sole function in the movie is to get trotted out  every so often to remind the heroine that her deception is incredibly stupid and will inevitable backfire. I'd call it a thankless role, but there's no other kind in this thing.

 "--sipid"

Incidentally you can find this movie in its entirety on YouTube. Here's the link, if you're feeling brave/masochistic/eager to see David James Elliott with his shirt off. (If it's the third thing, your estimation of his star wattage is such that you probably already saw it when it first came out in whatever theater it played the week or so it may have played)

3rd Place: VIGGO MORTENSEN. He made his movie debut in Witness, probably sparking the only erotic fantasies women ever had about Amish farm boys. The Lord of the Rings trilogy made him a star. But in the '90's, he was still mostly getting secondary roles. One of the few leads he snagged was in a 1997 remake of the 1971 flick Vanishing Point. The original was a pretentious mess about an asshole who drives like a maniac from Denver to San Francisco to deliver a car, destroys a ton of property, endangers peoples' lives and becomes a folk hero. The remake centers around an idiot who drives like a maniac to reach his dying wife, destroys a ton of property, endangers peoples' lives, and becomes a folk hero. I will admit I enjoyed Jason Priestly's over-the-top performance as a radio DJ who's following the hero's exploits, but this movie's a mess.

Vanishing Pointless remake

This movie is also available on YouTube in its entirety. Here's the link if you're feeling brave/masochistic/eager to see Viggo Mortensen semi-naked. (If it's the third thing, you're better off renting Captain Fantastic. MUCH better off)

2nd Place: JEFF BRIDGES. Jeff is one of my favorite actors. I'm not alone in that assessment -- his performance in Hell Or High Water brought him his 7th Oscar nomination. Maybe it's because at 67 he still has the same boyish charm that made him a star back in the 70's. He's always had a knack for playing nice guys. That was one of the things that made him so effective as the villain in Jagged Edge -- we, like the heroine, couldn't believe he was capable of rape and murder.

One role he wouldn't be cut out to play is an obvious psycho. Which is why he was so miscast in the 1993 thriller The Vanishing. It's a remake of a 1988 Dutch film, and though the same director worked on both, the differences are huge. In the original, the hero becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to his girlfriend, but we never know for certain if she was kidnapped or simply took off and didn't want to be found. We also don't know for certain if the villain has anything to do with her disappearance, which makes the ending especially chilling. The American remake offers no such ambiguities. Jeff's character is obviously guilty and obviously nuts, and the happy ending is so ridiculous I was actually laughing. This remake didn't just dumb things down -- it scooped out the brains of the original with a melon baller and flung the chunks around like a monkey in a cage hurling poo.

The Vanishing even more pointless remake.

And that brings us to this year's winner of the Fifth Annual SKELLY AWARD:
ISABELLE HUPPERT

The French actress made her acting debut in the 1971 French TV film Le Prussien. For the next decade she appeared mostly in films and television in her native France. Then she was hand-picked to star in an American film helmed by an Academy Award winning director, a lavish western featuring some high-powered American and British stars. This would seem to be a prestigious vehicle...except that it was...well, HEAVEN'S GATE.

A Fiasco For Mr. Cimono

What could be said about this that hasn't been said before -- it's one of the most notorious box-office bombs of all time. It cost $44 million dollars, and broke a movie studio. The original print when premiered in New York ran nearly four hours. It was recut by the studio down to 149 minutes for its wide release. I didn't see either of those versions (like most of America I avoided it) and only finally watched it for the purpose of this column. The version I saw was the Criterion Video release that clocks in at about three and a half hours, and is said to be director Michael Cimono's favored version. It might be the best version--but it seems no matter what version you're watching, it still sucks.

From what I understand, the other prints of the film used subtitles during the scenes involving the European immigrants. This version eliminates them -- if you switch on the closed caption feature, it simply reads "speaking Slavic language", which leads me to believe nothing they say is important, which tells you how much the director cared about developing them as people. Not that there was much interest in developing the leads either. Huppert plays a madam involved in a love triangle with Marshall Kris Kristofferson and hitman Christopher Walken. Their characters are much different from their real-life counterparts. (The real Ella Watson was never a madam, and she and Jim Avrell probably never met Nate Champion) But historical accuracy is the least of this movie's flaws. It's a lumbering incoherent mess, stuffed with pretentious and ridiculous scenes. The cast also includes the late John Hurt, Terry O'Quinn, Sam Waterston, Joseph Cotton and Jeff Bridges. (Jeff has far less screen time than Isabelle Huppert -- and the less screen time in it the better -- so he still comes in second place. ) Thankfully most of the people involved recovered from this mess (save for Cimino, whose career was destroyed. He passed away in July of 2016. I hope the In Memoriam segment is kind enough to remind the audience he also directed The Deer Hunter).

One of them could take home this year's Oscar for Best Actress.

 Isabelle Huppert has made 100 films. 99 of them were better than Heaven's Gate

-Bill S

Special Monday Beast Blogging Featuring Guest Cat: Sydney!

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

By Keith

Starring Sydney, the Cat.

Wherever she might nap, surprise is all but certain and not necessarily welcome.

Sid, that tub hasn't been cleaned in weeks. It has soap-scum ... and mildew! And I have to take a shower STAT, cat.

I just brought those towels in from the dryer. Don't suppose you want to pass one over,'eh?

"Would you like that towel hot or lightly steamed?"

Sidney, how the hell am I supposed to shave? OK, I give up, it's Norelco today.

"Not likely to help, Buster. You don't look so hot this morning."

Oh Sydney. We could never stay angry at you!

Bill S. Presents: The 6th Annual Mommy Dearest Awards!

Mother's Day is once again here, and it's time have a look at some moms in movies and TV who leave us grateful for the ones we have.

WORST MOVIE MOMS

Meredith Jones (Charlotte Rampling) in Georgy Girl (1966). So beautiful on the outside that men trip over themselves to get her attention. On the inside she has ice water in her veins -- she's so cold and soulless you practically root for her husband to cheat on her with the plain (by movie standards) Georgy. After giving birth to her daughter, she feels absolutely nothing, except revulsion. She ignores the baby's crying, won't hold her or touch her -- it's just as well, the child would probably get frostbite. When she ditches the kid and lets Georgy raise her, it turns out to be the best thing for all concerned.

Eve (Geraldine Page) in Interiors (1978) You can tell what her personality is like by her wardrobe: white, black, grey and -- for a more festive mood -- gray. So judgmental and critical that at one point she even complains that her daughter is breathing too hard. So, not exactly a life force.

Mari Hoff (Brenda Blethyn) in Little Voice (1988) A boozy, man-hungry loudmouth, she's a bit like Shelly Winters in A Patch of Blue. Her house is a deathtrap of faulty electrical wiring, with garbage strewn from one end to the other, and fridge full of expired or rotting food. And she treats her daughter with the same level of neglect, failing to even notice how special and talented she is. For me the most telling moment is in their final confrontation, when Mari calls her daughter "Little Voice"(her pet name for the soft-spoken girl), and her daughter angrily corrects her: "It's Laura!" The stunned look on Mari's face suggests that she seems to have actually forgotten this.

Mother Gothel (Donna Murphy) in Tangled (2010) In this Disney retelling of "Rapunzel", Gothel holds Rapunzel captive because the girl's tresses have healing powers; they can also restore youth and beauty. Unlike many other Disney villains, Gothel doesn't have any magic powers -- just a talent for manipulation and emotionally blackmailing Rapunzel. She does this chiefly by lying to her about the dangers of the outside world. Her worst lie, of course, is telling her "daughter" she loves her. Sadly, Rapunzel believes this, even when Gothel's true motives are revealed. That's why Rapunzel is upset when Gothel falls from the tower to her death, even reaching out to try and save her. (Has there ever been another Disney movie where a villain's death was treated this way?)

[From Scott: Well, the Evil Queen fell to her death at the climax of Disney's first feature, Snow White (1937), but nobody seemed to give a crap.]

Amy Dunne, AKA "Amazing Amy"(Rosamund Pike) in Gone Girl (2014) Doesn't actually become a mother until the end of the movie, when it's revealed she's pregnant. By that times, we've seen the hell she's put her husband through, and the horrible things she's capable of, including murder. We shudder to imagine what's in store for any kid she might have.

WORST TV MOMS

Sutton (Diana Rigg) on You, Me & the Apocalypse. Walking away from the funeral of her eldest son Jude, she bemoans the tragedy of a child dying before his parents. We'd think she was heartbroken if she had a heart to begin with. She murdered her husband, then faked her death for 30 years, leaving her two younger children -- twins Scotty and Rhonda -- orphaned at five, and living in poverty. With the world about to come to an end, she now attempt to track down her family, in the hopes of bringing them to an underground bunker where they might survive. But even that's not enough to make her children too eager to see her. Scotty has to be physically dragged into the bunker because he'd rather die in the apocalypse than see her again.

"My little Scotty bear...I know you have reason to be suspicious of me..."

Indeed he does. Unbeknownst to him and the rest of the family, Sutton's only motive for giving them shelter is to use them for blood transfusions she'll need to keep on living.

BONUS BAD MOM: Mary Conroy (Anastasia Hille), the mother of twins Jamie and Ariel, might be forgiven for leaving infant Jamie in a box in a parking lot, being as how she's nuttier than a Payday bar. But she also let Ariel know, every day of his life, that he was second best -- that Jamie was the special one. And that, more than anything, probably turned him into the evil bastard he grew up to be.

My final entry on this list is somewhat bittersweet, because was portrayed by the incomparable Doris Roberts, who passed away last month at the age of 90. Doris was a veteran of film and television for 65 years. She's best known for her multiple Emmy-winning role of Marie Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Over the years she's played a number of mom roles, usually dotty, doting ladies who shower their kids with praise and stuff their faces with home-cooked meals.

And then there's the role that puts her on this list: Flo Flotsky on Soap. The mother of young, conflicted priest Timothy Flotsky (AKA Father Tim) only appeared in four episodes, but it was more than enough to land a spot in the Worst Sitcom Mom Hall of Fame. At first, she seems like a typical Doris Roberts role; when Tim comes to visit, she has a pan of lasagna at the ready. But when Tim tells her he plans to leave the priesthood to marry childhood sweetheart Corinne Tate, her reaction is not what he hoped.

God may forgive Tim for leaving the priesthood, but Mama Flotsky isn't going to. When her son brings his fiancé home to meet her, Flo's first impulse is to try and strangle the girl the second Tim leaves the room. TWICE.

"You want my blessing? Is that what you came for? Okay, I'll give you my blessing. This is my blessing: May you never have a happy moment again for the rest of your life. And if you marry, may you know no such thing as peace and quiet. May you only know suffering and hardship and loss. And may you know this until your dying day -- that whatever misfortunes happen, are on your head!"

CORINNE: I can't believe it!

TIM: Neither can I. Actually, she took it better than I thought she would.

She does attend the wedding -- dressed in black -- but only to disrupt the service and cause a scene before being forcibly removed from the church. She then disrupts their honeymoon by calling Tim up ("Mom, it's our wedding night, of course she's here!") and tells him she's had "an attack" of some kind. Tim isn't convinced (she's threatened to die once too many times before), but caves in to guilt and finally arrives at her bedside. This time she makes good on her promise, and drops dead. But not before getting a few final nasty digs at her son and daughter-in-law.

That was the last we saw of Flo Flotsky, but, thankfully, not the last we saw of Doris Roberts. She went on to rack up 11 Emmy nominations, winning five times. For all the laughs (and tears -- her first Emmy win was for her portrayal of a homeless woman on "St. Elsewhere"), we thank you, Doris, and we'll miss you.

And a Happy Mother's Day to any mom reading this!

-Bill S.