A Bucket Of Blood (1959)
Episode 403, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Podcast
Todd: Hello and welcome to Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: Craig, we are week two into what might just end podcast. I don’t know. I’m just so, I’m so excited that we have the opportunity. And I’m. I’m super bummed that Roger Corman is gone, but he did live to a ripe old age of almost 100. So, uh, if, if I can get that far, you know, it means that I’ve made some major life changes.
But anyway, we’re, we’re tributing Roger Corman with a second movie. Last week we did House of Usher, which was the first of his Poe series, which was a bit of a departure for him and his company. So Roger Corman, just to give a quick background. Was a low budget filmmaker. He had an arrangement with a company later to be known as American International Pictures to provide them with black and white features.
They provided double bills to what was now a whole bunch of independent theaters around the country. And so it was just a double bills of cheapies. He would get paid like 50 grand in 19, you know, 55. And he would have that to make two pictures that then he would provide to the distributor. And the whole arrangement was great.
Last week, we covered House of Usher, which was a grand departure from that. He realized that this model might not be sustainable going forever. And he convinced them, give me enough money to make a full on color widescreen cinemascope picture with the big name star and let’s put it out there and see what it goes But I’m still able to shoot it on the cheap Which he was, and that spawned seven more movies.
So that was that line. What we’re talking about today is A Bucket of Blood. It was filmed in 1959 and this is one of those black and white features that he put with a double bill of something else that he did for American International Pictures. Really super cheap, shot it in like five days. The reason I picked this movie is because it’s notorious for a few reasons.
First of all, I was kind of keen to do pictures that he was heavily involved in. As a producer, you might be more involved with some pictures than you are the others. This one, he produced, he directed, and he and the writer, Charles B. Griffith, with whom he would have quite a long relationship. They spitballed this movie.
They went out and were like, Hey, we need to shoot this picture. What are we going to do? And, uh, let’s do something about beatniks. Beatniks are sort of the, I don’t know what you’d call them. The hippies of the fifties? Yeah. I don’t know.
Craig: The art, artsy, The Beat Poets and that. It was very focused around the art scene, I
Todd: think.
Yeah. Honestly, like, pretentious, artsy people. Now, you as an English teacher in high school, do you teach your kids about this era? Did you talk about, like, I mean, how familiar are you with this? Because some very significant American writers came out of this school or era. Yeah, not, yeah,
Craig: not, not really.
Yeah, we may look at some beat poets, but not in depth. Like we may read a couple of poems, but no, no, I don’t. I don’t
Todd: go in depth in this era. Beatniks are like counterculture at this time, right? And this was kind of the peak. 1959 was kind of the peak. And so. They were in a way ripe for parody. And so he and Charles Griffith went out and literally went from coffee shop to coffee shop over a day drinking coffee, drinking some alcohol.
And eventually by 2 AM, they had between the two of them sorted out. The story for a bucket of blood based on what they kind of encountered what they saw and Roger Corman himself Started this with the germ of an idea and I’m gonna read from an interview from him He said the idea for this picture came from a screening that I went to from one of my horror pictures A character was walking down a hallway, I used my usual technique of moving the camera, it was like an actor’s POV, moving forward, and then as the, he was moving forward, he reversed, dollied back, and built the suspense, and by the time this character comes to the end of the hallway, he has to open the door.
And the audience sees that there’s something terrible behind the door. He said, the scene played perfectly, the audience screamed, and we opened the door, of course, something fell into his face. And then, after the scream, they laughed. And I thought, did I do something wrong? Like, why did they laugh at a horror film?
So, I was trying to analyze it, and I realized that I didn’t do anything wrong at all. That I did get the scream I was looking for. The laugh afterwards was a release, the tension had been broken. And also, they laughed at the appreciation of being taken in. Right, they’ve been had by the scene. So, he said, I started to think about the relationship between humor and horror, which I later started to equate with sex.
So in each area, you build the tension, build and build, and then you snap it quickly. And the end result is that you scream in horror, You laugh in comedy or you come in sex. So I did a bucket of blood as a little experiment to see if I could combine horror and humor deliberately. And that led to his other horror comedies, which came after this, which were little shop of horrors.
and Creature from the Haunted Sea, and all three of these were written by the late, great Charles B. Griffith, who, like I said, became a Corman collaborator for a while. Charles B. Griffith was known in the industry by Corman and all the people who worked with him as an incredibly inventive writer. He was just fun.
He had all these wacky ideas, and he put them into the script, and he would write super, super fast. His parents had a vaudeville background, and so he kind of came from that, and he himself said he was too stupid to realize and understand how long it was supposed to take to do a script. So he would write, like, super fast.
Ha ha! And that’s why Corman loved him, is he would get scripts out to him super fast, they would have these wacky, fun ideas. Griffith! Went on to write a number of things, so many things, many things uncredited, you know, lots of big name pictures that he didn’t get a credit on or he did rewrites on or things like that, but he said, Honestly, like I got lazy because it was so much fun to work for Corman and to do these crazy things that he would just fall back on writing another picture or two for Corman.
That was, um, The kind of relationship these guys had that they latched on early on, they had a similar ethos, I guess, in a way, and so I chose this picture because Corman himself was spitballing the whole concept with Charles Griffith, who then wrote it, and then they shot it, and they shot it in like six days.
It was amazing. An insanely short amount of time. In fact, after they were done shooting it, nearly a year later, the sets for this movie had not even been demolished yet. And so, Corman jumped in and was like, Hey, uh, I need to sh I can shoot another movie real quick before you destroy these sets. And on the same sets that he used to shoot this movie, he shot Little Shop of Horrors.
Again, with another Charles Griffith script that once again, They went just from cafe to cafe and bar to bar to spitball over the course of a day and little shop of horrors We know it made a bit of money, but then it spawned a musical It launched jack nicholson’s career. It had many of the same actors from this movie in it and corpsman shot it Super quick, because in 1960, the rules were changed so that Hollywood had to start paying actors residuals.
No longer could you hire an actor and say, All right, you know, you did this movie for me, I paid you, it’s done. Now you had to pay an actor every time that movie was shown. Residuals. And so Corman shot Little Shop of Horrors in three days, like in December of 1959. So that he could hurry up and get one more film in before he had to start paying actors residuals.
Like, that’s how, that’s how this guy worked. Bucket of Blood stars Dick Miller. I love Dick Miller. Yeah, who doesn’t? We’ve seen him in bit parts in so many things. And one of the great things about this movie is this is a rare occurrence where we get to see him in a starring role. Like, have you? Ever seen Dick Miller in a starring role before this?
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: Well, yeah, because I saw Little Shop of Horrors. But he didn’t star in Little Shop of Horrors. He had a bit part in that. Oh, right. He was the flower guy.
Craig: Yeah. Yeah, the guy that came in. That’s right. I forgot he wasn’t the lead. I was thinking he was the lead. I’m not at all surprised that it was The same director and the same writer, and, you know, it’s shot on a lot of the same sets and whatnot.
Because, they’re the same exact movie. They are! They’re the same exact
Todd: movie. Except for the fact that one has a man eating plant and one doesn’t. Otherwise, the plot is exactly the same. Charles Griffith was very blatant about it. He said, I had this awesome structure that we used for Bucket of Blood and I just copied it and we used the exact same structure for Little Shop of Horrors.
And, and they use the same sets, they use the same actors, you know, for the most part. How great. This is what I love about this man. I, I so admire that I just felt
Craig: like, uh, you know, I’m watching it and, and as things just keep adding up, I’m like, this is pretty bold. This is pretty bold to make the same movie again and put it off as something else.
Because, I mean, the plots are so similar and there are so many parallels, like the main guy in this movie, Walter. Is this kind of simple down on his luck lower class guy who’s working in this place where he’s unappreciated and kind of abused by his boss. But, you know, the one ray of light is the girl that he likes there.
He wants to be something more, so he has to try to do something else. So instead of becoming a horticulturalist for a strange plant, he decides he’s going to be an artist because we’re not in a plant shop. We’re in like a hipster. Coffee shop club kind of thing, but it’s the exact same thing. So then there’s an accidental inciting is okay.
So the clay, his clay, that’s his medium. Just like the plant is Seymour’s medium. Right. And he’s so frustrated with it. You know, like in the musical, he sings, he can’t get the plant to grow. And he’s like, grow for me. And in this movie, he’s like. Messing with the clay. He’s like, be a nose, be a nose. Like he’s so, he’s so frustrated.
And then there’s an inciting accidental incident. In Little Shop, he accidentally pricks his finger, and that’s how he learns that the thing likes, the plant likes blood. In this, he accidentally kills a cat. Both of these accidental things Lead to a series of events where to continue in his success, which he immediately finds like everybody is coming in their pants over this plant and over these, uh, sculptures.
And so to, to keep his success, he has to keep producing. And then the only way to do that is to kill people. He also has a morally ambiguous boss who is aware of the murders, but as long as he’s going to profit from it. He’s willing to look the other way. There’s also another male antagonist in a little shop of horrors.
It’s the dentist who threatens Seymour. In this case, it’s, it’s Lou the cop and they end up the same way. And in the end, his medium or whatever gets away from him. His, his, uh, ambition gets the best of him and he’s punished for it. It’s the exact. Same. Plot.
Todd: I gotta say, I had never seen this movie before.
That surprises me. I know, I know. It has been on my list forever. And I even remember as a kid going to the video store and seeing this movie on the shelf, whoever packaged it and distributed it had presented it as though it was this long lost thing. Roger Corman’s bucket of blood lost to the ages finally resurrected and now check it out But it you know is packaged with one of those giant boxes and where it felt dirty and kind of weird And so I never picked it up.
It seems so quaint now that I never did but this is a black and white film This is one of Roger Corman’s black and white films Oddly enough, released at the same time that the movie we did last week was released. Again, this guy could shoot three or four movies in a year because he shot them in like five to ten days and was doing them, you know, to very specific requirements.
But he put a lot of thought and energy into it. And I love the fact, this is his first horror comedy. And he deliberately was like, I wanna do something different. He had seen this intersection of where horror and comedy seemed to go, and he wanted to explore it. Even the studio at the time wasn’t quite sure what to do with it, because they didn’t know comedy.
In fact, HE didn’t know comedy. Corman was like, I never shot comedy before, I’m afraid I’m gonna screw it up. And the best advice he got was Was from a friend of his who just said, you gotta shoot it straight. Have everyone play it straight. And I think honestly, he was successful about it because I watched this movie for the first time today.
And I got to admit, I was grinning from ear to ear. I honestly did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did. How about you?
Craig: I, I think if I had gone in knowing that it was supposed to be, Campy and funny. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that it was I didn’t read anything about it or anything beforehand I was excited to see it was really short.
It’s only what like an hour and six minutes I I I didn’t know what I was getting into and so it took me a while to figure out Whether it was supposed to be funny or not and then about halfway through when I decided it was I was like, okay I I get what you’re doing. I see the And I see the jokes, but I don’t know that it had the desired effect on me.
And I think that again, had I been aware that that’s what it was going for, I think that I would have looked at it through a different lens and maybe I would have enjoyed it more. I thought it was, you know, Fine, you should tell me the things that you like about it because I don’t have anything in particular that I didn’t like about it There were just things that were kind of curious to me.
Like I loved I I love dick miller, too. He’s been in Everything he’s cameoed in a million movies that we’ve talked about and and he plays a character here named walter paisley And apparently this movie had enough impact on filmmakers that they wanted like dick miller plays a character with that same name You in a bunch of movies.
Yeah, Walter Paisley. Yeah, they’re not the same character, but he often or sometimes has that name. And like I said, he’s playing kind of the Seymour role where he’s kind of down on his luck and he’s meant to be sympathetic. You’re supposed to feel for him. And Rick Moranis is just kind of so He just comes across, Rick Moranis in Little Shop of Horrors comes across as very innocent, like very naive and very innocent, almost childlike.
It’s difficult to say what Dick Miller was trying to do here or what Corman directed him to do here because it seems like they’re towing the line between he’s just simple and, well, or he’s legitimately mentally challenged. Yeah. I don’t know if they didn’t want to go Too far in a certain direction. It was difficult for me to read what he was playing.
Now I appreciated what he was playing because he really went for it and he stuck with it. I’m not saying it wasn’t good acting. It was just difficult for me to grasp as a character. I’m like, I don’t really get who you are, especially since by the end, well, no, he’s kind of morally ambiguous throughout.
And that’s another thing. Like he starts killing people, but I, I can’t tell if he’s crazy or if he’s too. Simple minded to understand that what he’s doing is
Todd: inappropriate. I sort of lean to the latter. Seymour is very similar, at least in the, you know, the original. I gotta say, like, the movie opens with this beatnik doing his, like, poetry.
You know, with a guy playing some drums or some music or whatever behind him. I will talk to you of art. For there is nothing else to talk about. For there is nothing else. Life is an obscure hobo bumming a ride on the omnibus of art. Burn gas, buggies, and whip your sour cream of circumstance,
Craig: and
Todd: hope, and go ahead and sleep your bloody heads off, creation is all else is not.
Craig: And then it goes
Todd: on forever and you’re like, oh my god, shut up. It’s so much garbage. I was thinking of, um, have you ever seen So I Married an Axe Murderer?
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: God. Like, they do the same thing in that movie. They just Woman! Woman! Woman! Whoa, man. I love it. It’s similar. It just obvious that he’s out to satirize this movement of pretentious artists types who are standing up in bars and doing poetry.
That’s just stream of consciousness garbage. That doesn’t really mean anything.
Craig: No.
Todd: When they’re done, they sit down with their friends and they talk about how profound it was and how great they are yet. Everybody at the table. really is just Looking for attention. We’re all artists and we all appreciate and all this stuff and they’re just stroking each other’s egos Yeah, and I know this was a particular era, but it’s so relatable because I feel like this never ends.
There’s always a moment in art history where you have, like, your pretentious people who are so wrapped up in themselves and think that this quote unquote art that they’re doing is so important and so wonderful. That becomes their identity, that becomes their meaning, and it just, from the outside, it just looks sad and pathetic.
And the minute that That guy opens his mouth. I was literally laughing out loud because the more things change, the more they stay the same, you know? Like, I know people like this now. It’s just different stuff. But it’s the same pretension. And it’s sad. Like, it’s this Longing to belong, it’s like, this longing to be important, like what you’re doing is important, what you’re doing is meaningful, what you care about is important and meaningful, but like, anyone from the outside looking at it, it’s like you’re just masturbating, you know?
You’re stroking your own ego. It’s just so much bullshit coming from your mouth, it’s completely meaningless. I’m
Craig: just gonna play devil’s advocate and couldn’t you really honestly say that of any artistic endeavor? Of course,
Todd: especially, especially the things that, that move mountains, you know, like there’s one point at which, you know, abstract art was laughed at, but then taken very, very seriously by people, and now it’s incorporated, you know, into what we understand as art, and we appreciate it and whatnot, but I think this is all about taking it to extremes.
I feel a deep sympathy. For Dick Miller’s character, that he is Busboy in this, I don’t know, coffee shop?
Craig: Yeah, I think so.
Todd: Where there’s a little stage.
Craig: It’s so funny because we talk, you know, we look at it from an outside perspective. Didn’t you go to those types of places in the 90s? Cause I certainly did.
These like, hipster coffee shops. There was one in my town where people would like, like they would come and they would just play their guitar and sing acoustic like on a little tiny stage or slam poetry or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. This is not at all unfamiliar to me. Yeah. I mean, I wasn’t, I was kind of a nerd.
I just kind of hung out with like these hipster kids and they, you know, it looked different, but it was the exact same thing. So it’s not like, and I’m sure that the, I know for a fact that these. Third spaces still exist. Not in my area, but they do. I’m just saying that, yes, us watching it as an audience, it looks super pretentious and stupid and it’s obvious that they’re making fun of it, but it’s also, I mean, I guess that’s kind of one of the points of satire is to, when satire gets too broad, then you kind of lose the message.
So, you, you kind of have to keep it, you know, Close to reality for the satire to even read so I think he does a good job of that here But anyway, I’m sorry. That was a tangent you were talking about how you feel. Sorry for Walter You know this meek
Todd: guy in this environment Okay, so going back going to Walter by the way Everything you said is right going to Walter like he’s this guy who’s just a busboy and he feels unimportant and he aspires to All these people, they congregate.
There are all these self proclaimed artists in here. This guy gets off the stage and he’s spout out this quote unquote poetry that’s, that he even admits is meaningless. Everyone listen to my new poem. Do you think they really heard it? I heard it,
Clip: Mr. Brock. Thank you, Walter. I’m sure you did. Bring on the multitude with a multitude of fishes.
Feed them to the fishes for liver oil to nourish the artist. Thank you, sir. That was word for word. Is
Todd: it? I’ve forgotten.
Clip: You mean you don’t remember your own poem?
Todd: I refuse to say anything twice. Repetition is death. I don’t get it. When you repeat something, you are reliving a moment, wasting it, severing it from the other end of your life.
I believe only in new impressions, new stimuli, new life.
Clip: I
Todd: thought you believed
Clip: that life is an obscure hobo bombing a
Todd: ride on a I do believe that, Walter, but I also believe creative living. To be uncreative, you might as well be in your grave. You know, they applaud him because they all want to be a part of the circle, right?
Right. And this guy is outside of that. He’s watching it. He’s waiting their tables. He wants desperately to be a part of it. I don’t know. I just felt like aren’t we all kind of there at some point? You know, we want to fit in, we want to be right, but you’re right. He’s played us a little slow. So he’s very vulnerable and somebody actually says something about him.
It’s a dig. He says, Walter has a clear mind. One day a thought’s going to enter it. It’s going to get lonely and wander out. You know, he’s just such a pathetic character.
Craig: Yeah. And there’s one point, somebody, somebody says something about being in the military and he said, they tried to draft me once, but I couldn’t pass the test.
And he just says it in all earnestness. Like it’s just. A fact and they all kind of look at each other like that was the other thing that bothered me that doofy poet, which I do want to go on record and say that everything that he was spouting was nonsense, but it was pretty well constructed nonsense.
Like if you if you actually listened to what he was saying, it didn’t make any sense. It was just like free association, but it did have a cadence and it did have a meter and you could pull some meaning from it. Sure. Yeah, it wasn’t just nonsense words like just random, like, you know, He was saying something.
Yeah. It was just a bunch of gobbledygook. But he, that guy, that poet, and Carla, she draws. You know, they’re all artists in some way or another. They aren’t mean. One might even say they’re nice to Walter. But in a really condescending manner, where it’s clear to us, I don’t think it’s clear to Walter because he so desperately wants companionship and community, but it’s clear to us as the audience that they’re condescending to him, and that they’re laughing at him behind his back.
And that makes him even more pathetic. And, and you feel bad for him. He’s unaware,
Todd: right?
Craig: I, yeah, I think he is.
Todd: And so I instantly bonded with this guy and I was interested in his story from the beginning. And I was surprised by that. You know, I didn’t think that this movie was going to get there so quickly.
And Dick Miller, who I’m used to seeing in these like sarcastic, almost opposite roles, right? Self assured. Yeah. He’s kind of an every man, like he’s just
Craig: kind of a likable, Every man and, and he comes home and he’s so excited. ’cause he has some clay. Well, that’s the thing that, that’s his in like art is the in to this community.
So he has to do something. I mean, they tease him, like, have you ever written anything? I don’t remember exactly what they say. He’s like, no, but I, I am working on something. I’m working on something at home. He clearly knows. That art is his way in. So he buys this, you know, huge cardboard box full of molding clay.
He’s already bought it before the events of the movie, but we see him, you know, open it and, and pull the clay out. And he grabs a port uh, not a portrait, an actual photograph of him. frame photograph of a woman. I don’t know who it is. Maybe his mother. I don’t know. Or maybe it’s Carla. I don’t know. It might be.
I never, it’s hard to say, right? Yeah, I don’t know. It’s as though he thinks that he’s just going to sit down and be able to sculpt whatever he wants to sculpt. He starts very clumsily putting together What’s supposed to be a head, but it, but he just, yeah, I mean, he just molds kind of a ball and then he pokes his thumbs in for eyes and then he tries to make a nose and he can’t even get it to look right, and he’s clearly visibly frustrated, like, why isn’t this working?
Why can’t I make it look the way I want it to look? And he gets really upset. Meanwhile We’ve heard this cat meowing. We know it’s the landlady’s cat. She told him it was lost or whatever. And he realizes that it’s stuck in the walls and he’s like, all right, hold on, I’ll help you out. So he grabs a huge knife.
I was the biggest damn knife you’ve ever seen. And he’s gonna cut it out, but of course you know what’s gonna happen. Like, you know, he gets a hammer or something and he hammers the knife in, and you hear RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I laugh so hard. I’m a cat lover, but I laugh so hard
Todd: at that.
Craig: I It grossed me out when he Because then he pulled part of the wall down and he had in fact impaled the cat and when it was just hanging there Impaled I was like, oh, that’s gross.
And then when he started to pull it out and it was clearly not a real cat It had no Motion like it was if it was ever real it was certainly taxidermied at this point because it was stiff as a board Right, but he’s upset about he’s upset about it But he goes to sleep and he wakes up in the morning and all the time, this was something else that was interesting about his character to me is it’s almost like he has, and I’m, I’m probably going to use the wrong word because like an eidetic memory, like it is, he remembers.
say, and he can recite word for word everything people say, but, but that also means that those things are constantly floating around in his head. Yeah. And so he starts chopping together different things he’s heard and sssss. From the poet.
Todd: Let them die, and by their miserable deaths become the clay within his hands that he might form an ashtray or an ark.
Pray that you might be his diadem, gold, glory, paint, clay. That he might take you in his magic hands and bring from your marrow wonder.
Craig: And that triggers in his mind an idea.
Todd: And it’s a really silly idea. He says, repetition is death, Frankie. That’s the first thing he says to this poor cat, right? And it’s ironic because the poet says, I never say anything twice.
Repetition is death. But he himself can’t help but repeat everything this guy has said in his head. Throughout the whole movie, he’s going back to this guy’s words like they’re really, really meaningful for him. And it’s really tragic in a way. I don’t know, like, I don’t want to get too deep into this, but, you know, this guy has said all these things, and in this particular circumstance, in this particular situation, this guy’s really taken them to heart.
And he’s taken them to heart in a very twisted way, and that just makes it more pathetic. He just latches on to what this guy says, and we can all look at it and see what this guy says. It’s just, honestly, it’s just garbage.
Craig: Yeah, it’s just like free association. Like, just whatever comes to mind next, you should re you, you, honestly, because I imagine a lot of people haven’t seen this.
If we haven’t seen it, I imagine a lot of other people haven’t. If any, if any of our listeners are like me, they may be a little bit reluctant to seek out something like this. So you should play just a little bit of that so they can hear what we mean. Because it’s difficult to describe. He, he ascribes meaning to it.
So, I mean, what it comes right down to is he’s not mentally well. I’m not going to try to diagnose him. I’m not. He’s impressionable and he’s not well and he’s not. Making rational choices, but he’s desperate for acceptance again. Killing the cat was an accident. I find it morbid and gross that what he does is that he takes the clay and he uses the body as a mold or whatever.
And he just covers it. He encases it in the. I find that morbid and gross, but, you know, people do taxidermy, and I almost would be reluctant to judge that. But, what’s funny about the movie, and this is, I think, in large part what makes it a comedy, is he takes it immediately. I mean, that clay dries instantly.
And he takes it immediately to the coffee shop and the owner, Leonard and the girl he likes, Carla, are sitting outside. And he’s like, do you want to see something? And they’re like, yeah. And he has it wrapped in a blanket and he opens it up. And not only is it the cat, but he hasn’t moved it, nor has he removed, nor has he
Todd: removed the giant knife going through it.
He hasn’t taken the knife out. I literally laughed out loud at that. I did not expect that. I thought it was hilarious. And then he asked him, what’s it called? That makes sense. Dead cat. Dead cat!
Craig: But what’s even funnier than that is Carla loves it. She thinks it is like the most brilliant thing she’s ever seen. This, it looks like a dead cat that has been dipped in clay. And they’re talking about, oh my god, look at how, uh, How you’ve captured the anatomy and like it’s crazy and she’s good. She’s like it’s a masterpiece and at first I couldn’t even tell if They were coddling him or making fun of him and he just didn’t Understand, but I don’t think so.
No, I I think that she actually really liked it and then Leonard put it in the back because Walter wants it displayed and So Leonard’s like, okay I’ll put it I’ll put it way in the back in that alcove in the back and then the next scene is him Walter working And I just thought it was so cute and pathetic that everybody he talks to is like do you like my cat?
Do you like my cat? Do you like my cat? Yeah. I
Todd: just couldn’t help but feel for this guy, because he says to her, does this mean I’m an artist? Yeah. Honestly, I was emotionally invested in this movie. And Maxwell seems to kind of control the crowd, more or less. He makes an announcement that Walter’s a genius.
He makes this hilarious speech, and when he’s done, even when he’s done with his speech about how genius Walter is, he ends it with, bring me an espresso, Walter. Yeah. Like, like you’re, you know, you’re still serving me.
Craig: Get me an espresso. You’re right. That guy seems to be the person, his opinion is what matters.
Like. Yeah. If he says it’s good, it’s good. I guess he’s earned that much esteem in that little circle or whatever. He’s kind of the kingpin and he really kind of holds court too. Yeah. People congregate around him and he, he’s always like just lounging in his chair, just vomiting philosophy. And
Todd: it’s funny.
Yeah. It’s hilarious. I mean, don’t you know people like this? I mean, it’s so
Craig: relatable. Yeah. Yeah. So the reason that I found it a little bit difficult to sympathize with him at this point, even though I knew that this was an accident, I knew exactly what was going to happen because I’ve seen Little Shop of Horrors and I already saw the setup.
Especially when they’re like, when they’re like, what are you going to do next, Walter? What are you going to do next, Walter? And he’s like, Oh my God, I have to do something next.
Todd: You know what? I got to say, I loved this play on words. I think the writer of this movie was so clever. Maybe it doesn’t translate well now.
But somebody says to him, make another cat. And he says, well, I haven’t got another cat.
So that’s funny on that level,
Craig: but it’s also funny. I did like that writing because I liked that writing and it continues in that vein where he never. Really masks what he’s doing. No! It’s just that nobody ever really asks. Nobody
Todd: picks up on it, right? Right. And, also I love that play on words, cause, you know, in this era anyway, a cat is slang for a person.
Look at that, he’s a cool cat, he’s a cat, or whatever. I haven’t got another cat, but later He gets another cat. But in this circumstance, it’s a person and not a It’s an undercover cop.
Craig: Okay, so there’s also a hilarious scene where after, like, seriously, they are, like, worshipping at his feet over this cat, and people want to buy it and blah blah blah, and some I don’t remember if it’s Payola.
Something like that. Yeah. Veolia or something. Some weird lady, some robust middle aged lady, like throws herself, throws herself, oh my God. Ridiculously
Clip: water. I dug it. My cat, it was the most wonderful, wildest, like wiest thing I’ve ever seen. Walter, you’ve done something to me. Something deep down inside of my prana.
I have? Oh, Walter, I want to be with you. You’re creative. You’ve got a heart like bulb glowing inside of you. And I want to be warmed by it.
Craig: You’ve done something to me deep down in my piranha is a line that I hope to remember and be able to pull out at parties. But anyway, she throws it, she throws herself at him and it’s very, cause he is, he doesn’t even know what’s going on, but she, she’s like, all right, well, at least let me give you something.
I have to contribute something. So she, she pulls something out of her bra and we don’t know what it is. And she puts it in his hand and we don’t know what it is. And he’s walking home and this guy follows him because there’s apparently a whole, Ring of undercover police that just hang out in this place all the time.
Yeah, they’re staking that place
Todd: out Yeah,
Craig: we we learned that early on one of them follows him home and knocks on the door and he’s like, hey Whatever. It turns out what she gave walter was heroin But he didn’t know that. He doesn’t even really know what heroin is. He has
Todd: no idea.
Craig: He’s like, oh yeah, heroin, isn’t that expensive?
And the cop’s like, yeah, it can be expensive. And he’s like, well, that was nice of her to give me something expensive. Like he just, he doesn’t get it. And when Lou, the cop, tells him he’s a cop, Walter, again, being simple minded and not really understanding how things work, doesn’t understand. He doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong.
And he sounds like a But I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t take it, I didn’t know what it was, she gave it to me, I didn’t know, it’s not mine. But the cop’s like, you’re coming with me, and he pulls out a gun. And then Walter is so scared of the gun, you’re gonna shoot me, you’re gonna shoot me. And he’s holding a frying pan, and he Kills the guy with it.
Todd: Gets him over the head. It is so Little Shop. The first kill, unintentional. I had to do it. Right. The dentist, right? Like he,
Craig: that wasn’t on purpose, really, but anyway. Okay. So then there’s a funny bit where the landlady comes in. She was great. She’s in Little Shop too, by the way. And he somehow has hidden the body in his ceiling.
I haven’t, that didn’t make any sense to
Todd: me. I didn’t get that.
Craig: While the landlady’s in there, like the arm falls down from the ceiling dangling. So he has to get her out really quick, which he does. But then he puts, I assume this is where the title comes from. He takes a big pot, like a pot for the stove top and puts it on the ground to collect the blood that is pouring down this guy’s arm.
Yeah. And I guess that’s the bucket of blood because bucket of blood has nothing to do with the rest of. The events of the movie.
Todd: Yeah, he’s just kind of talking to himself. I mean, I also think this is supposed to be funny. He’s talking to himself. I need another cat, something like that. You know, while this blood is pouring into this bucket behind him.
And I love what she says to him when she comes in. It’s just very straightforward. She’s like, Walter, what do you need as a girl?
Craig: She doesn’t have to be pretty.
Just get laid. What she’s saying is that she, he needs somebody to take care of him.
Todd: Yeah, for sure.
Craig: Because she’s also upset by the state of the apartment. It’s not tidy or whatever, but he, he shoes her out. And then, I mean, you can see what’s coming a mile away. He comes back to the apartment. Place the next day and, and he’s like, Hey, I’ve got something else.
It’s called murdered man.
Todd: He’s not very clever in his, uh, titles, but in between that and this Lou Leonard, who owns the club has picked up the statue of the cat and accidentally drops it. And then he sees first sticking out. And then he realizes, Oh, Walter is a fraud. Like this is what he’s been doing.
There’s a dude on stage singing a song about a murderer. Yeah, and Walter’s like very uncomfortably walking around. Oh god, I thought that was hilarious. Anyway, Leonard is starting to Realize what Walter’s on to and when he unveils murdered man, he’s extremely shocked about it Yeah, everybody else thinks it’s genius, but he’s like He
Craig: tells Leonard, you’ve got to stop doing this.
But, at the same time, I don’t think that it has happened yet. Like, I think that he sees Murdered Man even before he’s going to call the police. Yeah, he’s, well, he’s an
Todd: opportunist. He discovers the cat thing, and he’s like, oh, well, Walter’s a fraud. But just at that moment, some big, fat, rich guy comes up and offers him 200 bucks for it.
And then he offers him 300 bucks when he kind of demurs, and then offers him 400, and then says, you know, no, this Walter guy, he’s going to be big. I’ll give you 500 bucks if I can have the cat statue plus first look at his next door. Piece of art,
Craig: right? And, and as this is going on, Leonard is literally reaching for the phone.
Like he’s going to call the calls. And it’s like, it’s the more, it’s the moral dilemma, like back and forth. Like he’s like 300. And Leonard thinks about it. He’s like, no. And he reaches for the phone and the guy’s like 400 and eventually he gets to 500 and he’s going to do it. And I, and I think that the reason for that is because, well, the reason that he was going to call the police, you know, I think he was still willing to let it go.
You know, If Walter would stop, but at the success of murdered man, Walter’s like, I can’t stop. I have to keep doing stuff. And I think that’s when he was like, okay, I’ve got to call the police. But then when he realized how profitable he’s going to be, he’s like, well, I guess I’ll turn the other cheek.
Todd: Yeah.
I mean, it’s so, I think there’s definitely several obvious layers of social commentary in here. I mean, they’re bold on their face. You know, it’s not that sophisticated. It’s cool. You know, I mean, it’s more than you would expect for a quickie movie like this. He’s obviously self motivated by money, so he’s not going to turn him in quite yet.
So that’s an interesting dynamic, I think. Also, by the way, I’ve got to say this. There are these two guys who are running gag throughout the movie, who are just stoned out of their mind every single scene. They always have this kind of funny commentary, and there’s all these jokes in there about veganism, and about, you know, Are these eggs?
Smokin weed. Yeah, and wheat germ. By the way, I just have to say, because it’s part of our history, I think this is the third prominent mention of wheat germ. In a movie, that we’ve had so far. Do you remember back when we did, uh, what was it? Zombie Nightmare or something like that? I can’t remember, where a guy was going to buy wheat germ, and then like two weeks later, we saw another movie, and there was some dude talking about wheat germ, and then in this movie, they talk about wheat germ like five times.
I don’t know much of that. I think for the time it was shorthand for veganism or something like that.
Craig: Oh,
Todd: sure,
Craig: gotcha.
Todd: It’s a lot of these jokes in here.
Clip: Watch it, the plate’s hot.
Todd: Are these fertile eggs? Are these eggs fertile?
Clip: Naturally.
Todd: What’d you fry them in?
Clip: We ran out of the safflower seed oil, but I found a bottle of peanut oil on the shelf.
Don’t worry, it’s not hydrogenated.
Todd: Is that the cold press stuff or the junk Hildebrandt by mistake? And I think it kills. Roger Corman, when he was interviewed about this, I don’t remember what year it was he was interviewed, but he was just like, you know, the audience laughed at these bits. But now, a lot of the things that they were making fun of are accepted in society today.
You know, we have these things like the vegan lifestyle, and people wearing sandals with suits, and so it’s just not, like, funny now. People don’t realize is that a lot of those things that the beatniks were doing and writing about have now become part of our collective culture. Well, I sort of feel like those things have come back around again.
You know, where we’re kind of looking back on these things, and still there’s at least a segment of society that still makes fun of it. So in a way, it’s kind of funny how timeless the humor in this movie really is. Like, I was laughing, and I, by the way, I, Those two guys, go ahead. I, I eat very little meat.
I’m, I’m practically a vegan myself, and so, It’s okay, it’s alright, Todd, it’s okay, you don’t have to defend me, it’s fine. for your reassurance. Yes! But yeah, I mean, I think it’s hilarious, too, when everybody’s got to announce their veganism to everybody, you know? It’s just a funny thing to laugh about, and back in the 50s, it was no different.
It’s just so funny how little things have changed.
Craig: Those two guys, I, I, it took me a while to figure out. What was going on with them as far as what their purpose was. But ultimately I decided that, and I can only think of one of the guy’s names, but those two old guys from the Muppets, the two old guys, Walt Waldorf, and Stant Stant Standler, I don’t, something like that.
That’s who they were. Like the camera would just cut to them so they could make some hearty, hard jokes. Sure. I also decided that those guys were gay. I don’t know that the movie projects that in any way, but I just decided that they were, um, because it’s, it looked like they, they dressed just alike and like, they probably shared clothes and stuff, but, uh, yeah, those guys, I, I found them really funny too.
At this point, Walter is like on top of the world. And he’s eating it up, and like, he comes to the coffee shop dressed like a pimp or, or, or something.
Todd: Yeah, he’s got like a, like a beret, he’s got a scarf around his neck, and he’s got a cigarette holder and all this, it’s just typical stuff. Very stereotypical like pretentious artist.
Yeah,
Craig: and he’s strutting around and he’s so proud of himself and everybody’s kind of falling at his feet Except for this one model who’s apparently been out of town. So she doesn’t know about everything that’s happened And she can’t believe that the stupid bus boy is this great artist and she gives him a lot of shit and she Openly to his face insults him and calls him an idiot and worthless.
Yeah, she’s a real yeah She’s not a nice person She’s stunningly beautiful, but she’s not a nice person and he he gets very upset and very angry and she’s like He’s like you’re ruining everything because she’s driving people away from him And anyway, so he stalks her home that night and lures her back to his apartment under the guise of he wants to pay her to model for him so he can sculpt her, but instead, after she strips nude, in silhouette only, he positions her on a chair and then strangles her, and then the next day, he has a new, uh, Statue the cat statue was a mess.
The people statues look kind of cool Like I could under I mean, they’re still pretty rudimentary there, but the the woman one in particular Looked looked kind of skillful. I could see how somebody might look at that and be able to find some artistic beauty there It’s still grotesque because she’s still obviously being strangled But yeah, that’s kind of the turning point, where, you know, he intentionally kills somebody.
Todd: Corbin shows some style here. This is a point in the movie where you could tell the movie starts to take a slightly different turn. He’s got more skewed angles. A darker turn. Yeah, even visually it’s more dark. It starts to feel more
Craig: Hitchcockian in the
Todd: way that it’s shot. Yeah. It feels more like a thriller.
It’s got more noir type elements. Things, there’s a lot more shadow and you know, he’s able to make these very small and simple sets kind of more interesting by casting a lot of shadow over it and darkness and very interesting ways. And, and again, like a kind of skewed camera angles and things like that.
It’s, I’m impressed. I’m, I’m, of course I’m impressed with Corman as a producer, but I think as a director, he put a lot of thought into what he was doing. I think he really cared and tried and was still able to do things on a small budget that were artistic. I really appreciate that.
Craig: Yeah, and I think it’s well paced too.
I mean things move pretty quickly at this point like Again, everybody fawns over the woman thing And so they throw him a big party and he like wears a crown and everybody’s going on and on about how great he is And the poet gives a speech about him about it’s a poem He does like a poem about him and he really takes that to heart like He’s accomplished what he wanted to do.
People are acknowledging him. He’s part of the community. He’s been accepted into their community, but he’s drunk and he’s also desperate to keep that, like keep it going. Yeah. He’s now entirely motivated. By fear of losing it.
Todd: He literally says, I gotta do something before they forget me. I know what it’s like to be ignored.
And yeah, honestly, this is really good. I think this is really good stuff. I mean, obviously it’s very bold to have him just state this outright, but. I get it. I sympathize with this guy. I understand how he feels. He’s in this desperate situation and all he wants is just to be accepted. And so I hate to see him.
I know he’s doomed to death. I know he’s doing horrible stuff.
Craig: And I also understand because I think that that’s A challenge that anybody who finds success faces, because you find success and you receive all these accolades and all this acclaim, and then the next question out of everybody’s mouth is, what’s next?
What are you going to do next that’s going to impress us? And that’s, that’s a lot of pressure. And you’re terrified they’re going to move on.
Todd: Right. How’s he going to maintain that?
Craig: And Leonard knows that he’s dangerous, you know, he knows what’s going on. And at this point, Walter just gets, I think he’s drunk.
I think this is right after the party. And he finds somebody working construction alone on the street with a giant circular buzzsaw and little drunk. Walter somehow manages to fight this guy and pin him down and slice his head off. And then the next morning, he has a bust. And, and he brings it to Leonard, who has just heard on the radio that somebody had been found decapitated on the street.
Todd: Yeah, it’s the newspaper salesman who announces it, yeah. It’s silly and it’s funny, but
Craig: Leonard says, you have to stop doing it. You have to stop doing it. If you’ll switch mediums, if you’ll start just doing like abstract or something, I’ll give you your show. Cause cause Walter is really wanted a show of his work.
And so he’s like, okay, give me my show or whatever. I don’t know if he has any intention of stopping. It doesn’t really matter at this point. No, he doesn’t because he has the show. But at the show, he confesses his love to Carla, and she tries to let him down easily. She’s like, you know, I, I do care for you, Walter.
It’s just, you know, I, I, I love your work. I, it’s, I don’t love you in that way. She’s, she’s not, she’s not terrible about it. It is sad.
Todd: It is sad because, like, his whole thing, he’s just so naive, right? Like, when he revealed murdered woman or whatever, like, she kissed him out of, You know, she just gave him a pack out of excitement or whatever.
Oh, this is your best work yet But it turns out that he interpreted that as like you love me I mean, it’s just oh,
Craig: I know I feel for him. He doesn’t understand and you know, he and he’s so naive and innocent that like in confessing his love he asks her to marry him like It’s it’s pathetic but it is sad but when she rejects him he gets angry but then he You Asks her if she would allow him to make and the way that he words it is important to because he can I make you a statue?
Yeah, not can I make a statue for you? Can I make you a statue and she’s like, oh I’d be flattered or whatever But they go to the show and she closely inspects the woman in the chair and there’s one place where the the clay hasn’t covered It’s like a A fingernail, and she can tell that it’s a real fingernail.
She bumps into him, and when she bumps into him, she confronts him about it, and he doesn’t deny it, because he’s never denied it. Oh. Again, just nobody has noticed or no like, like he doesn’t understand that he’s done anything
Todd: wrong. In fact, it’s like, he’s following Maxwell. He says, Maxwell said it’s alright, and he quotes back, you know, some lines from his poetry.
Let them become clay in his hands, that he might mold them.
Craig: It bothers me that at this point, he says something like, you know, Ooh. I don’t understand what’s wrong. I gave her new life or
2021-04-09
