The Good, The Bad, & the Tiny

Ahh, long-term expectation. Bundles and bundles of gleeful hope just waiting to be crushed into a sandwich topping and choked on by some dull but physically superior bully. Such is the sad truth of our lives.

The Terror of Tiny Town is a film that’s been on my radar since, at the rosy-cheeked acned age of 13, I read about its existence in one of many books I owned detailing the making of The Wizard of Oz. An all midget (as they were then called, and also, apparently owned) Western, with SONGS? Heaven, I never knew you could exist on earth!

Because you can’t, of course, and no amount of future Munchkins riding Shetland ponies and singing “I’m gonna make love to you/ you’d better look out” could prove otherwise. Still, may I extend a bigger-than-a-bunch-of-little-people-stacked-in-a-pyramid thanks to the one, the only, the T.L. Bugg of The Lightning Bug's Lair for recommending The Terror of Tiny Town for our monthly swap. Head over to his site for my pick, the bizarre and killer-toy-featuring Brotherhood of Satan.

Quick Plot: There’s an endless feud brewing between two families out in Tiny Town, where for no explained reason, everybody is of mixed nationality and under 5’ tall. Buck Lawson (the White Hat clad Billy Curtis) attempts to mediate between his pops and longterm foe Tex Preston, but the situation gets complicated with the arrival of Tex’s lovely niece and the increasingly surly Black Hattedness of “The Villain” Bat Haines.

Or something. Really it’s not that important, because really, it’s the plot of just about any Western made between 1930 and 1965. The bad guy is bad. The good guy is good (and has an inexplicable, but entertaining New York accent). The good girl is plucky.  A bar wench is bitchy. And Russian. Shots are fired. Horses run. So it goes, so it goes.

In case you hadn’t caught on, I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of the American Western. The Terror of Tiny Town was clearly not made to break any cinematic barriers, but the complete void of a single interesting plot point doesn’t help its case in the least. Sure, it’s chuckleworthy to watch two little guys wrestle and a petite bartender guzzle a beer, but I guess I just prefer my little people western musicals with more...I don’t know...anything.

High Points

Though the acting mostly comes off as stiff and/or just barely being audible, the romantic leads played by Curtis and Yvonne Moray are actually quite likable and charming

I ain’t gonna argue with a little person barbershop quartet!

Low Points

There’s absolutely no visual style whatsoever going on in Sam Newfield’s camera. Sure, this was early filmmaking, but considering a mere 365 days later would yield The Wizard of Oz, you’d think Newfield could at least try to summon some form of energy in composition or art direction. Sometimes the set is bigger than the cast. Most times it’s adjusted with steps and small furniture. None of which makes it interesting. Heck, at a certain point, you might even forget you’re watching “The only Western with an All-Midget Cast!” which in today’s PC world, might be appropriate. But it’s also more boring

Lessons Learned (of Little People Dynamics)

Little people dynamite takes about 31 minutes to explode

It’s incredibly easy to frame an innocent man for murder: simply accuse him, then proceed to drop gigantic hints that you’re lying about his guilt in front of all forms of law officials

The populace of Tiny Town is of Eastern European or New Yawkian descent

Low down kai-oats are responsible for most problems in the world

The Winning Line

“Maybe you’d rather ride on top with me?”

Ladies, this is spoken by a man who cares about YOU

Rent/Bury/Buy

You know those Happy Little Elves characters Maggie Simpson finds incredibly amusing? Think of The Terror of Tiny Town as them, but with squeakier voices, worse direction, and more camp value. This is, without any qualms about it, not a good movie, but at about 60 minutes long, at least you can get through it in less time than it will take to do your laundry. And hey, it’s a cult classic coated in pungent cheese, so many a fan will owe it to him or herself to take the plunge. Just don’t expect, say, the joyous badness of Matthew McConoughy shouting “He’s a dwarf!” over and over again as found in the Gary Oldman Oscar bid, Tiptoes.

And now I send you on your Shetland pony to head on over to The Lightning Bugg's Lair for old people, sacrificed children, face melting dolls and more!

It's Notta Too-mah!

I’m not going to lie: about 84% of the reason why I’m writing about The Manitou is so that I could use my favorite Ahnold line ever in the title for this post. 10% comes from the fact that the titular baddie of this film is petite, hence fitting with February’s Vertically Challenged Villainry. Finally, the remaining 6% comes from the following synopsis:

When Karen (Susan Strasberg) tries to have a tumor removed, she discovers it's actually the deformed fetus of an ancient Native American shaman ready to be reincarnated. Soon, the evil spirit bursts forth, and Karen turns to a sham psychic (Tony Curtis) and a contemporary medicine man (Michael Ansara) for a showdown with the murderous creature. Stella Stevens, Burgess Meredith and Jon Cedar co-star in this campy chiller.

Deformed Native American shaman fetuses AND Burgess Meredith? Life, you are a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Quick Plot: Pretty much what I just said. Susan Strasberg plays Karen, a normal by most means woman who just HAPPENS to discover a fetus growing on the back of her neck. The doctors aren’t much help (though at least they avoid being administrators) so she runs back into the arms of her bogus (but well-dressed) psychic ex-boyfriend, played by Tony Curtis. His name is Harry, which is easy to remember because he has his very own tagline: Harry’s the name and Tarot’s the game. Rock. On.

As Karen’s little surprise grows bigger and her talents expand to speaking a tribal language, it becomes universally accepted that she’s actually some form of surrogate mother to a manitou, i.e., the reincarnation of a Native American medicine man. This is a rare ailment probably taught in the final semester of med school, where wily young folks are too hung over while coasting through senioritis and don't have the time to say 'what the f-"

So what does one do upon discovering that one will be birthing an ancient spirit on the back of one’s neck? Abortion is apparently off the table, as an attempted surgical removal turns the doctor’s scalpel into a weapon of self-destruction. Research seems limiting (“after that, it just goes into rain dances,” bemoans a frustrated study buddy). Harry starts shopping around Native Americans, settling on John Singing Rock to perform an exorcism of sorts (because, you know, it’s the 1970s and all genre films were legally required to include one). All he asks for in return is $100,000 donated to the Indian Education Association. Plus tobacco. I probably would have tried to throw in some popcorn balls or movie passes, but that’s why I’m not a seer.

I don’t know how far I should go in recapping the magic of The Manitou. If you like Star Wars, you will eventually rejoice at the sight of space lasers. If you like The Exorcist, you will drool at seeing a kind-of exorcism. There are also boobs and fake snow. A giant hologram that makes every episode of Sightings look positively horrifying. Spontaneous combustion. Lines like “I’m just a South Dakota Indian with a bag of tricks.”

Oh, and one of February’s most exciting Vertically Challenged Villains ever, a little person Native American who spends more time in the gym than Ahhhnold during his pre-Kindergarten Cop days. 

Need I say more?

High/Low Points

Much like the equally laughable The Devil Within Her, The Manitou’s strength and weakness comes primarily from just how seriously it insists on taking itself. The fact that poor Tony Curtis can deliver his lines with so much earnestness is simply hilarious

Lessons Learned

Say it with me: whatever you do, don’t be an administrator

The best way to rekindle romance is to be impregnated in the back by a Native American medicine man

Duh, like, every machine has its own manitou!

I don’t know that the following is any form of a lesson, but The Manitou seems so gosh darn intent on telling it over the end credits that I feel as though I MUST include the epiologue:

Fact: Tokyo, Japan, 1969: A 15-year-old boy developed what is doctors thought was a tumor in his chest. The larger it grew, the more uncharacteristic it appeared. Eventually, it proved to be a human fetus.

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Manitou is one of those 1970s relics that simply can’t be explained. It must be experienced. It has virtually everything you’ve ever wanted to see onscreen, plus an inconsistent sore and floating elderly possessed woman. I can’t for the life of my cats understand why anybody that breathes would NOT want to watch this film. You do breathe, right?

Time to Skin the Lightning Bugg...

Check the calendar kiddos: it’s time for the monthly Lightning Bugg’s Lair/Deadly Doll’s House Exchange Program! This month, I assigned Mr. T.L. Bugg one of my absolute favorite films, Stuart Gordon’s 1987 horror fairy tale, Dolls. Head over to his fine establishment of a blog for his take (which better be dripping with praise or the fluorescent lamp WILL be turned to high) as I tackle the less esteemed, yet still...interesting 2004 indie, Skinned Deep.

Quick Plot: Like about 31% of all direct-to-DVD horror, Skinned Deep revolves around a group of ‘normies (in this case, a family a few waiting lists spots away from eligibility in The Biggest Loser) whose car breaks down in the land of mutant backwoods carnivores. The perfectly unsightly nuclear family are invited to dinner with a seemingly kind old lady and her sons:

 the Surgeon General (a gas masked cousin of Dr. Satan with a rather groovy bear trap mouth)

Brain, the sensitive overall clad shy one with an enormous noggin

and my favorite, Plates, the dish-tossing dwarf played with typical panache by a pasty faced Warwick Davis.

In a pretty kickass (yet incredibly silly) scene, 3/4 of the family is brutally slaughtered and the teenage Tina taken captive to be Brain’s future bride. Don’t worry: it’s much less dirty than it sounds.


Sure, the kind-hearted mutant gets a fantasy Basket Case-like streaking scene in Times Square (something that apparently got the very game Jay Dugre arrested since unlike Cameron Crowe, director Gabe Bartalos wasn’t about to splurge on those filming permits) but Brain treats Tina like a lady. He even takes her to a public park filled with people whom she could probably have hitched a ride with and teaches her how to ride a motorcycle, something that in no way could possibly have any bearing on anything else that might happen later in the film.

Meanwhile, the mutant family makes a few more enemies when an elderly gang of bikers (one member being the late Forest Ackerman) stop for some coffee. When one geezer decides to put the moves on Granny, she responds accordingly by having her children brutally slay him, later leading to his grizzled gray haired pals riding back to town to take some vengeance. And get blown up, attacked by plates, and have heart attacks. Whatever happened to bingo halls and early bird specials?

By now you probably realize that Skinned Deep is no Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It is, however, about on par with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation or perhaps more fittingly, the Dan Akroyd directed Nothing But Trouble. Yes, these are comparisons that should send chills down the spines of most discerning filmgoers, but there are plenty of cinema-nonsnobs with a weird sweet tooth for this type of terrible fun.


And seriously, that’s what this movie is. Warwick Davis seems to have full reign of doing whatever the Hoth he feels, from a touchdown dance in front of an old shirtless man to an extensive political monologue about why senior citizens suck. It’s that kind of movie, and as long as you’re in the mood for it, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

(For the record, this man clearly does not suck. I mean his acting kind of does, but look at that grin!)

High Points
This might make me an evil person, but I automatically give a handful of bonus points to any film unafraid to murder its underage characters


Low Points
You know, when female nudity is displayed in most films, the audience gets really excited because most of the time, it’s somewhat impressive. Why is it then that most of the men who take it all off on camera are generally just...well, I give them points for bravery


I often complain when low budget releases don’t include subtitles and generally, it’s for a very simple reason. The audio of Skinned Deep is terrible, loud in some scenes and barely audible in others. Thankfully, the DVD includes a necessary subtitle option that simply must be on to get half the film


Lessons Learned
Cardinal rules of T names remain in place. Just as any character named Tiffany is inevitably a slut, the heroic Tina follows her name in being your typical bitch

It takes about 8 seconds to choke to death on sand


A heart attack is best explained as your heart exploding into chunks


Vegetable print dresses flatter no woman, least of all Bette Midler’s much less attractive mutant cousin (who by the way, isn’t playing one of the mutants)

The Winning Line:

“Coffee. Make mine black.”
Um. You don’t make coffee black. It comes that way. You make it un-black by adding stuff to it. Hence, when your waitress is holding an urn, you don’t need to say anything else


Rent/Bury/Buy
Skinned Deep will please a particular sort of horror fan, the type who relishes the zany washed down with a gooey glass of gore. It’s not a good movie--okay, it’s a terrible terrible film--but at the same time, it never shies from its wackiness and delivers the goods with a whole lot of heart. The DVD includes an audio commentary and a behind-the-scenes feature with a style of its own. Just watch Warwick Davis behind interviewed while wearing his Leprechaun makeup. That in itself is kind of super.

Horrible Non-Horror! Little People, Big Mess

Welcome, leprechauns, leprechaun hunters, corned beef enthusiasts and Irish hating readers. I have not one drip of emerald blood in my bones, so in honor of this day after the day after the Ides of March holiday, I've decided to celebrate the first of what I hope to be a regular (and by regular I mean random) new segment here at the Doll's House called Horrible Non-Horror! The exclamation point is included.


Basically, I watch a lot of movies that are not what you, your blind grandmother, deaf Dalmatian, or illiterate water bottle would consider quality entertainment. Even though some may not fall under the horror banner, they are indeed horrifically wonderful in ways that are just selfish of me to not share with you. Hence, Horrible Non-Horror!


Enough explanation of a self-explanatory title. On to today's special (and by special, I mean especially horrendous) feature, Tiptoes! (exclamation provided by me; I'm just really excited).

For most actors, the term “chameleon” is a compliment of the highest order, a power of transformation many charisma sweating superstars can’t even fathom. Bruce Willis may be subdued in The Sixth Sense, but he’s still John McClain (just with cleaner feet), while even someone with unusual bone structure like Hilary Swank can disappear into a role, whether she’s an awkwardly in love transexual in Boys Don’t Cry or a hot single mom on Beverly Hills, 90210.

So what do you get when you take one static, stubbly actor with the range of a beach volleyball and cast one of filmdom’s most unique and versatile actors as his limping twin dwarf brother?

The answer, of course, is 2003‘s Tiptoes, an epically awful, manically confused, and amazingly entertaining high profile flop with massive identity issues. 

Quick Plot: Matthew McConaughy plays Steven, a fireman instructor with a signature twang and dark family secret: he is the only over 5 footer in a family of dwarves. This could almost remain under wraps if it weren’t for two great excuses to plot a movie: a) the arrival of Steven’s twin brother Rolfe (Gary Oldman in what the trailer calls “the performance of a lifetime; whose lifetime it refers to is not specified) and b) the surprise pregnancy of Steven’s artist girlfriend Carol (Kate Beckinsale, constantly bewildered).

For most of his life, Steven has been rather ambivilant about his height and family’s lack thereof. We know this because Carol later questions the ambivilant Steven about his ambivalence while using the word ‘ambivalent’ about 19 times. His ambivalence is further emphasized when he inexpilcably brings a few tall ladies to a little person’s pool party, as if to imply an impending affair that is never referenced again.

In case you couldn’t guess from the intro, trailer, premise, or fact that you may never have heard of this movie, Tiptoes really not very good. At all. Directed by Freeway’s Matthew Bright, this bizarre direct-to-DVD enigma tries its little hands at a love story, slapstick comedy, human drama, and message movie while making a mess of just about everything and anyone that came near the film set. I’m at a loss for where to even begin, so in no particular order, here’s a list of what makes Tiptoes the first entry in my new series of Horrible Non-Horror!:

• Characters have what seem to be relationship-ending fights, only to inexplicably appear together and happy two scenes later.

• Peter Dinklage, playing a French Marxist, comes off as a really terrible actor

• The film’s best scene is a round table What To Expect When You’re Expecting A Little Person how-to wherein Beckinsale’s character asks the president of the Dwarf Society “If I do have this baby and turns out to be little, what does this mean for me?”

• The opening credits list each A-list actor before the title, probably because the editor was so amazed that such a collection of celebrities appear in this film

• The film finds the opportunity to feature big-on-little sex with none other than David Alan Grier doing some (thankfully) fully clothed thrusting

• Patricia Arquette plays a “free spirit” hitchhiker and somehow makes Juliette Lewis’ Mallory Knox look stable

• Every character that is not a little person or major celebrity has a thick Eastern European accent

• In a major confrontation, Kate Beckinsale heads to fireman training grounds in pajama pants, wedge heels, a tanktop, and winter hat

• After the birth of the little man, McConaughy taunts his wife by begging her to admit that “He’s a dwarf!” over and over again, which means we get this scene:

Which is actually a wonderful thing

What went wrong? Aside from the fact that this movie was written, one itching issue is the casting of Gary Oldman--no 10’ tall Tom Noonan but an average height fella--as a dwarf, which seems akin to modern blackface or Jonathon Pryce taping back his skin to play a Vietnamese pimp in Miss Saigon. Despite the fact that there’s marriage and a baby plus aftermath, it never feels like anything actually happens in the film. Beckinsale speaks as though she’s slowly emerging from light anesthesia, McConaughy’s character is written as a frustratingly bipolar jerk, and poor Peter Dinklage has no better line than “I am French!” 

Lessons Learned

Food is free because God wants us to eat

When attending a party hosted by little people, try to avoid sporting a gigantic updo that adds about 6” to your already towering height

For a smooth drink, mix some French cough syrup with cognac

Becoming a truck driver will turn a man evil

Winning Line

“You had a circle jerk with little people? I would’ve loved to see this!”

Wouldn’t we all Carol, wouldn’t we all.

Conclusion:

If you, like me, enjoy earnestly awful cinema like fine wine, then scoop Tiptoes from your local library and enjoy the strangely saccharine ride. Sadly, the DVD offers no behind-the-scenes insight or director commentary, but the very inclusion of the hysterically random trailer and fact that clear subtitles let you actually absorb all the horrendous dialogue is, in itself, something to thank the mini gods of movies for.  


Don't believe me? Enjoy the trailer and come back when you agree that when the going get tough, it's only the size of your heart that counts.

Vertically Challenged, Morally Bereft

1982’s big budget adaptation of Annie is a fairly disturbing kid film. Daddy Warbucks jokes aside (“I never thought I’d get used to a girl!”) it could have been a brilliant Lynchian surrealist fantasty had the marvelous Carol Burnett been replaced with the maniacal Clara Keller of 1973’s The Sinful Dwarf. Singing out of tune and dancing half clothed, Kelly’s Lila Lash may very well have been the chief inspiration for the eccentric, back alley orphanage mama Miss Hannigan...

except without the nudity, brothel, and son that happens to be a mischieveous little person who enjoys sodomy and the piano.


So that was kind of my way of not starting my review of The Sinful Dwarf by addressing the fact that it’s about a sinful dwarf. And a lot of sex, nearly all of it forced onto drugged up naked women. But hey, at least there’s two gleefully tone deaf musical numbers! (This is turning out to be much more like Annie the more I think about it.)


Quick Plot: While playing hopscotch like any twentysomething dressed like a little girl, a young woman meets the lecherously limping Orlaf (child actor-turned-porn star Torbin Billie). With promises of a toy collection and a Jack Nicholson smile, the hobbling dwarf lures her into heroin-addled white slavery run out of a the shabby hotel he runs with Lila Lash, his boozy floozy of a mother. Meanwhile, a comely young couple arrives to rent a room. While Peter, the husband, spends his day trying to peddle a few manuscripts, his daft wife (Anne Sparrow) lounges around and complains about everything. Occasionally, they have sex and we (and Orlaf) get to watch.

The bra & brainless Sparrow is clearly a temptation for Orlaf and of use to Lila, who’s in need of a pretty blond to replace a fair-haired prostitute that’s become a tad too reliant on the heroin Orlaf administers to dull the pain of, you know, being held captive by a flannel-wearing dwarf and forced to have rough sex with S&M enthusiastic johns. Needless to say, Orlaf gets his alone time with his houseguest. The results are just wrong.

High Points
A strong credit sequence features an array of strange little toys, setting an eerie and surreal mood early on

If an Oscar was ever given for Best Performance By a Mechanical Poodle, the final shot should have clinched it


There is a cheerfully macabre Bette Davis feel to Clara Keller’s weird and wonderful (and yet not very good) performance. Some may find it grating and tacky; as a person whose favorite Halloween of all time was spent dressed as Faye Dunaway’s Joan Crawford, it made me smile

Low Points
You know how, if you’re in a particularly sour, cynical, and airhead-hating mood, Mia Farrow’s Rosemary is kind of a drag? Sparrow’s Mary makes Mrs. Woodhouse look like Sarah Connnor


A heroin dealer named Santa Claus smuggles drugs with the help of a dwarf and homemade teddy bears. Which is awesome. You know what’s not? He’s not an interesting character


Lessons Learned
Toy police cars are great reminders about who to go to when you fear for your wife’s life


When you’re fairly poor and have nothing to do all day but investigate strange noises in a creepy hotel that makes you uncomfortable, it’s probably time to just get a fucking job

Danish police officers trust the general public to do the dirty work for them


If you feel like you’re being watched, perhaps you should wear a bra under a tight white sweater


Rent/Bury/Buy
The Sinful Dwarf is exploitation at its wackiest, rich in gratuitous nudity, graphic rapes, and scored to a porn-rock soundtrack. Whether that’s a good thing depends on your filmgoing tastes. Let’s face it: you know, based on the title, if you want to watch this film. As far as ownership goes, the newly released DVD is fairly scant on extras, but does include a very entertaining short about two video nerds being mentally abused by Orlaf’s adventures. If you’ve ever wanted to watch a bizarre little pervert sodomize a Tori Spelling lookalike, then this is, in all probability, the only movie for you.


For now.