Monkey Business

Well – New York stunk today – at last report nobody had the vaguest idea what was causing the natural gas smell to cover Manhattan and then spread out to New Jersey and Queens. What I heard was that it was not a natural gas leak, instead was a leak of the gas that they add to natural gas (which is odorless). But the source of the smell remains a mystery –what ever it was it had to have been a fairly large leak of something since everybody could smell the damn stuff.

Someone quipped that there this was the result of the way the New York football teams played. Just to note pre-game I was amazed at the utter confidence that the Jets were going to win from the fans calling in – I mean these are the Jets we are talking about – a team that specializes in raising your expectations only to tear them to shreds at the last moment.

Anyway – I have to note that Mayor Bloomberg did not really handle this very well at his daily news conference he had no real information – and could give none, and then got rather peevish that reporters were asking him more questions (that he did not want to answer) about the gas leak. Apparently he had some thing or other that HE wanted to talk about and he by god was going to talk about. Well Mr. Mayor you don’t always make the agenda sometimes a big stink changes your plans so try and a) be a little gracious about it and b) stop scolding people and reporters for talking about things that you don’t want to talk about. You’re the mayor not our boss. (And forget the idea of running for president okay? You’ll just embarrass yourself – see Pataki, George – and spend a lot of your money uselessly).

Anyway – where were we – ah yes – the rest of Bride and the Beast.

Well after the bad night with Spanky (again I feel odd writing ‘bad night with spanky’ ) Laura has a nightmare involving gorillas and Africa and (what will be a big part of this picture – stock footage) and right away, and I mean right away the male lead goes off to get a shrink. This seems a bit excessive to me – after all it’ was only one dream and hell she was face to face with spanky in the bedroom in the middle of the night (again there is so much wrong with the phrase “face to face with spanky”) I think you’d need at least a couple three bad nights yes? Unless having a bad night with Spanky is just a code word for their sexual dysfunction – you think about things like this

So the next morning the shrink shows up, along with the servant (who does call the Male lead Bawana- ahhhhhh!) who apparently was given the job of carting Spanky away. The shrink who is a pretty typical Ed Wood Character – talks impressively about things but actually makes no real sense – puts Laura under hypnosis and then, after a bit, regresses her to a past life (the film was done in the late 50’s when this sort of thing first hit the media – I think it was the Bridey Murphy case that was making the headlines back then) and she relates about being a gorilla –and dying as a gorilla. We get to see the same stock footage we saw during Laura’s dream but now in a negative exposure. I would say this is the hand of Ed Wood here – cheap films made even cheaper.

The shrink says to the male lead that Laura must have been a gorilla in a previous life (which is a hell of leap but I guess the movie has to show some forward momentum) and that maybe taking her to Africa might not be a good idea. The male lead responds as only male leads can respond, that he’s made all these plans and this is their honeymoon and he just comes across like a spoiled whiny brat. It’s a pain to listen to the jerk.

But then they are off to stock footage of flying – followed by stock footage of a cattle boat – followed by more stock footage of an African city, then stock footage of the bush, lions, and rhinos and giraffes and what not until we get to a cheap and seedy looking interior lot that is supposed to be their base camp. The entire sequence induces narcolepsy in the most people so I’ll spare you the rest of this.

What happens next is that the camp is attacked by just about every wild creature in the bush – actually stock footage. There is one weird moment where a leopard wanders into the camp and the Male lead shoots at him in his pajamas – (how he got in his pajamas ahhhhhhhhhh! – I’ll stop but it’s soo hard). It’s the pajamas that make the scene bizarre they are about the ugliest things I’ve ever seen – on a par with the pajamas Carey wears in the Mask – that bad. And who the hell brings pajamas into the bush? He’s supposed to be a great white hunter and he’s wearing what looks like Brooks’ Bothers rejects to bed – in the bush. Laura isn’t doing much better wearing white nightgowns with a white robe over it – that would be seem excessive in Westchester (it seems like it was a heck of a lot of work undressing a woman in the fifties – even if she was ready for bed – and they have this camp beds that well lets just say – making whoopee ain’t easy on them) Really the clothes only make sense if you are in a studio set, not actually in Africa..

Well then because the film needs about ½ hour more running time before it ends –they use stock footage, a lot of stock footage, huge amounts of stock footage, to tell the insane story of two tigers escaping into the bush in Africa and there is much tooing and froing until the tigers are killed or captured. During the process Laura is hurt (after carefully dressing up to look just like the woman in the stock footage).

I can imagine the conversation.

Ed Wood: We have all this great stock footage of tigers. We have to use it.
Weiss: But the film is set in Africa
Ed: We can just make it India – it’ll work.
Weiss: but there aren’t any gorillas in India
Ed: Oh yeah (thinks for a moment) then – we’ll have the tigers escape from somewhere in Africa – It’ll work.
Weiss: Well
Ed: Have I ever led you wrong before?

Actually, compared to the films Ed actually directed – they are pretty careful to match the actors clothing and look to that to of the stock footage – even to point of making the servant run about without a shirt and wearing an embarrassing turban because that is what’s in the stock footage. The actor never made another movie by the way. I understand why. I wouldn’t either.

So the tigers are killed and captured but in the process Laura gets a knock on the skull and is knocked out. Male lead sends servant off to get doctor. He is menaced by a black panther (which doesn’t exist in Africa) and a pretty damn fake looking crocodile and stock footage as well.

Then – after not being anywhere or spoken of for most of the film we have the gorilla ex machina moment, cause well, were out of stock footage and we need to wrap this puppy up people want to see the second feature as well here you know. The ape – looking a lot like spanky (which isn’t a surprise since he’s the same guy) shows up and takes Laura away after wacking the male lead over the head – his pistol jams – of course. Laura seems okay with the idea of monkey love and lets the ape carry her away. Male lead follows into cave filled with men in bad gorilla costumes I mean really ratty like they had been in somebody’s attic for years and years. The male lead tries to take her away from the adoring apes – one offers her fruit – but she does not want to go and in the struggle the male lead is knocked out.

We then flash back to the estate where the male lead is talking to the shrink who figures – in that weird Ed Wood way that Laura has regressed because she was a gorilla in a previous life. So the film ends with Laura, in white nightgown and all, the bride of the gorilla (which is another film). It’s a strange ending full of odd undercurrents.

The parts involving Laura and Spanky the gorilla are interesting if weird but the use of every damn piece of stock footage on the planet to stretch this film out makes it a rough rough slog.

Random Neural Firings:

News all a twit with the idea that W is going to launch a major press to convince people that his idea to pour more troops into Iraq will work. We’ve heard this song before, before the election W launched on a major publicity campaign to defend being in Iraq. Support for the war dropped by the week. I don’t expect much except a hectoring speech that address the American People like they are idiots and the beltway press swooning over W’s seriousness and courage in choosing an unpopular course.

Courage? His ass isn’t on the line. Courage would be him a) admitting the whole thing is a fiasco b) admitting that it’s his fault and c) getting our boys the hell out of there. I am sick at heart with this casual acceptance of the death of brave young men and women to no purpose other than a desperate attempt to save W’s war. This isn’t a surge – this is going to be a goddamn picket’s charge.

Meantime, the times reports that due to the manner of his death Saddam has become a Sunni hero across the Arab world. Nice. There isn’t anything these guys can’t screw up.