When Cult Films Appear Within Cult Films

When a film scene plays out in front of a movie theater or in pre-Giuliani Times Square, I'm probably not the only cinephile who squints at the television set in order to read the marquee(s) or determine the one-sheet in the display. Of course, I really love it when the film within a film is a particular favorite of mine and /or a cult film.

Here are a couple of examples of "cult films within cult films," which I also happened to catch on 35mm within the last half year or so. Both examples hark back to a time when neighborhood theaters that played one film at a time were commonplace and the exterior and lobby were transformed into visual paeans to that film.

Darker Than Amber in Dusty and Sweets McGee:

The poster to the left of the ticket booth is different from the final one-sheet and resembles the key art in the British quad. The tagline reads, "If Travis McGee puts his life on the line, it's not going to be for free." Incidentally, we can also see a poster for what appears to be a stage production of Hair, just to the right of the man in brown leather.

British Quad (paired with Figures in a Landscape):

U.S. one-sheet:

Italian locandina:

The Warriors in American Gigolo

Most of the time, I'm sure the film advertising that appears within other films comes down to chance, but in the case of The Warriors and American Gigolo, the Warriors advertising prominently appears throughout the scene; my thought is that it's not a coincidence that The Warriors, and not The Wanderers, for example, is the film in the background given that both were produced and released by Paramount. To think I had the opportunity to ask Paul Schrader such an important question at a recent screening of Gigolo...and didn't do it.

"You Shoulda Been There!"

I've just heard that Floyd Mutrux will be in New York later this summer at the Walter Reade, in tandem with filmmaker / scholar Thom Andersen (Los Angeles Plays Itself), to discuss Mutrux's American Hot Wax and Dusty and Sweets McGee, both of which will be screened together. I can only imagine we New Yorkers will be treated to an enlightening discussion of Mutrux's portrayal of Los Angeles in Dusty and Sweets. American Hot Wax is a New York movie, Brooklyn to be exact, although the only location listed on the IMDb is the Wiltern on Wilshire Blvd. I'm guessing this stood in for the Brooklyn Paramount on Flatbush Ave. I would imagine that this will come up in during the Mutrux / Andersen discussion..."When Los Angeles Plays New York."

aloha, bobby and rose (1975, Floyd Mutrux)

Floyd Mutrux's second directorial effort finds the filmmaker's affinity for car culture, rock music, and radio in full bloom. Unfortunately, all of these elements are in the service of a rather conventional "doomed lovers" narrative.  Where Mutrux used the voices of night time rock d.j.s to profound, haunting effect in the docudrama Dusty and Sweets McGee, here the incorporation of radio is perfunctory and its impact is weakened by the fact that it's there simply to parrot back the cliches of the central romance.  

Paul LeMat, fresh off a successful debut in American Graffiti, stars as Bobby, a gas station mechanic with no prospects for a brighter future.  Dianne Hull is Rose, a young, single mother who falls for Bobby.  Bobby and Rose fall in love after one night together, but their happiness is ruined when they become involved in a tragic accident and take to the road to escape the authorities.  Neither character is very memorable or compelling, but LeMat and Hull do the best they can. Truth be told, Bobby and Rose are really pretty stupid, a point which Vincent Canby drove home in his review.  While Mutrux's central figures and story are lacking, the movie is of interest for its soundtrack (Elton John dominates), '70s Los Angeles locales, and supporting cast (Tim McIntire, Robert Carradine, Edward James Olmos).  Mutrux again benefits from the presence of top drawer d.p. William A. Fraker, who I can only imagine is a good friend and who shot every one of Mutrux's films.  

The movie comes alive for about twenty minutes when Tim McIntire's big, blustery Texan enters the picture.  McIntire's larger-than-life persona, which Mutrux would utilize to its fullest in his subsequent American Hot Wax, is a real breath of fresh air and just about steals the film from the leads.  McIntire plays a former football player who befriends Bobby and Rose after they flee Los Angeles.  He and his wife (Leigh French) take the young lovers south of the border to Tijuana where McIntire buys a flashy new suit, treats everyone to dinner, gets in a fight with nearly every other gringo he encounters, and pisses in the car of one such yokel, who McIntire refers to as "shit for brains."  Sadly, McIntire died way too young in 1986 of heart failure.  He was 41 and the son of actors John McIntire and Jeanette Nolan.  He left us with a superb performance as Alan Freed in American Hot Wax and fine work in films such as this one, Fast-Walking, The Gumball Rally, A Boy and his Dog, and Brubaker.

Back to Bobby and Rose, there are a few great moments within its disappointing package.  At the top of the list is an extended night car ride down Sunset Boulevard in which Bobby and Rose listen to KKDJ 102.7 radio personality Humble Harv introduce Junior Walker's "What Does It Take to Win Your Love." Mutrux and Fraker pay tribute to the many rock billboards, clubs, theaters, and music stores that dot the route.  It's really a unique way to mark the time and place.  As someone who always gets a kick out of pop culture references within films, this scene was a real treat and shows us where Mutrux's heart is. Bring on American Hot Wax...please.

“I’ve scored all my films to the car radio, because I believe rock & roll is a fervent, infinitely powerful force. It brought down the Berlin Wall." - Floyd Mutrux

Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971, Floyd Mutrux)

"Wind it up baby, the Solid Gold Weekend is coming to a close..."

U.S. One-Sheet

Mitch and Beverly aka Dusty and Sweets

Larry and Pam

Big Time Male Hustler and a customer

Floyd Mutrux's pseudo documentary Dusty and Sweets McGee is one of the great lost curios of the American New Wave.  It is, to use a term too freely thrown around, truly a time capsule of a time and place, which has long since morphed into something else entirely. Made on a shoestring by the then 28 year-old Mutrux, fresh from the Warner Bros. story department, the film was pulled by that very same studio after a week of very solid business.  It is said that studio executives were scared off by the nonjudgmental style in which Mutrux and his team (including William A. Fraker, Laszlo Kovacs, and Bobby Byrne) portrayed the film's eclectic mix of real-life Los Angeles junkies.  Uncharitable reviews like the one by the Times' Howard Thompson, which characterized the film as "sickening" and "interminable," surely did not aid the film's cause.  

However, the film is much better than that. Using the ubiquitous voice of an all-night radio d.j. as something of a framing device, Mutrux follows a collection of dealers and dopers during one "Solid Gold Weekend."  Some like Tip and the Big Time Male Hustler spout their philosophies to the camera in an interview style.  Others like Mitch and Beverly ("Dusty and Sweets") the camera observes in a more fly-on-the-wall manner. An on-screen text scroll at the start of the film tells us that the addicts in the film are really addicts.  The dealers (Father Knows Best child star Billy Gray among them) are actors.  Most of the attention is wisely placed on the addicts who range from a tragically young teenage couple, Larry and Pam, to a low-level criminal and "card-carrying everyday dope fiend," Tip.  Interestingly, it is Gray, the one real actor in the piece, who comes off weakest.  His screeds seem forced and inauthentic in comparison to the otherwise unprofessional cast.  Still, it is a trip, to say the least, to see the former child star with long greasy hair and a swastika tattoo.

Mutrux injects no overt commentary into the film--there is no voiceover and no onscreen titles except for the aforementioned opening.  Instead, he expertly uses familiar golden oldies of the 50s and 60s and some lesser remembered tunes from the early 70s as a sort of Greek chorus and, in the case of the finale which utilizes Jake Holmes' "So Close," achieves a staggering effect.  Mutrux, like Martin Scorsese and Jonathan Demme, is clearly aware of the great dramatic effect that the right pop song can have on a film.  The soundtrack, which includes footage of Blues Image performing their sole hit "Ride, Captain, Ride," plus Del Shannon's "Runaway," the Monotones' "Book of Love," the Marcels' "Blue Moon," Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," Harry Nilsson's "Don't Leave Me Baby," and others is surely contributing to its continued absence on any home video format.  The licensing fees are no doubt enormous especially for such a niche title.  The keen ear for pop music that Mutrux demonstrates here is not surprising considering this skill would be integral to his later output, aloha, bobby and rose, The Hollywood Knights, American Hot Wax (perhaps his most fully realized film), and There Goes My Baby. 

Warner did strike a new print for a weeklong run at San Francisco's Roxie in 1996 and both dailies, the Chronicle and Examiner, gave it good notices.  I would very much like to see a DVD so that the fine camerawork by Fraker and "extra eyes" Kovacs, Byrne, and Richard Colean could be better appreciated and so that we could have much-needed input from the rarely heard from Mutrux about his concept, its production, and its participants.  Though I don't have great faith that many of the "stars" are still living, I would like to definitively know what became of them, particularly Larry and Pam, whose scenes are the most harrowing and painful to watch.  Most famously, in 1998, Billy Gray settled a libel suit with Leonard Maltin, over the film's entry in Maltin's annual film and video guide.  Maltin incorrectly labeled Gray an addict in the guide and was forced to remove the damaging text in subsequent printings and issue a public apology, which he did on July 18th of that year.  

Mutrux is an interesting case.  Like Paul Williams, he peaked rather early and though he's still kicking (there was a late 90s article floating around the Internet about all of his near-misses), many of his projects have never gotten past the development stage.  Mutrux's 1975 follow-up film aloha, bobby and rose starring Paul LeMat and Diane Hull is available from Anchor Bay.  His 1978 classic American Hot Wax, which chronicled the times of pioneering d.j. Alan Freed, appeared very briefly on home video at the dawn of the format, but has since been in the vaults due to its mammoth double LP length soundtrack.  A collection of pop hits did not, however, stop Sony from belatedly releasing the inferior The Hollywood Knights (a more raunchy American Grafitti) on DVD and VHS in the late 90s with its soundtrack intact (this was around the time that the studio also paid the soundtrack royalties for Heavy Metal and American Pop and released them on home video).  1994's There Goes My Baby was a casualty of Orion's collapse and sat on the shelf for a few years. 

He appeared as an actor in Rosemary's Baby, Noel Black's Cover Me Babe, and 60s episodic television.  His writing and story credits include Two-Lane Blacktop (uncredited), The Christian Licorice Store (also producer), Freebie and the Bean (executive producer), American Me (executive producer), Bound By Honor, and Mulholland Falls (which you can read about in a lengthy article at Radiator Heaven).  He was an executive producer of Dick Tracy. His former wife is the producer Gail Mutrux.

The key art for Dusty and Sweets McGee is not all that visually interesting, however I do appreciate the text, which attempts to link all or most of the characters in a way that the film never actually does. In any event, it does a good of selling the film.  The tag line refers to the aforementioned radio announcer's jargon.  When taken out of its original context and used as poster copy, it is melancholic and ominous in a way that is befitting for the film.