Premonition (1972)

Before he started making idiosyncratic character studies, Alan Rudolph got his directorial career started with a pair of low-budget genre pictures, the first of which was this underwhelming thriller about hippies running afoul of demonic flowers. Rudolph also wrote the movie. Dull, shapeless, and vague, the flick begins with lackadaisical musician Neil (Carl Crow) working as an assistant to Professor Kilrenny (Victor Izay) during a research trip into the desert. They discover a skeleton in a field dotted with vibrant red flowers, and Neil has weird visions. Some time later, after Neil has parted ways with the professor, Neil assembles a rock trio and takes his bandmates to a remote cabin, where they practice tunes and romance compliant hippie chicks. Unfortunately, those pesky red flowers bloom near the cabin, so Neil’s bandmates begin experiencing visions. Mayhem ensues, with a major character falling victim to the flowers’ influence—or something like that. The deliberately ambiguous Premonition leaves viewers as bewildered as the characters, but that type of narrative approach only works when storylines are grounded in memorable events. Alas, nothing in Premonition is memorable. Neil spends a lot of time gawking while he reacts to dark visions, and he yaks to his buddies about how upsetting the visions were, but he never does much of anything to improve his situation. Although Premonition benefits from slick photography by future A-list Hollywood shooter John Bailey, the movie is so bereft of actual events that it’s excruciatingly boring, and Rudolph misses the opportunity to draw ironic parallels between the herbs that the hippies smoke onscreen and the plants that might or might not be the source of their troubles. At least Premonition got Rudolph’s unique career going, so props to the filmmaker’s father, veteran TV helmer Oscar Rudolph, who executive-produced his son’s directorial debut.

Premonition: LAME

1980 Week: Roadie

          After making two low-budget horror flicks on his own, and then a pair of arty dramas under the tutelage of Robert Altman, eclectic writer-director Alan Rudolph spent the early ’80s trying to work in a more commercial vein, beginning with this ensemble comedy set in the world of rock-music touring. Despite the trappings of a mainstream movie—lowbrow sex humor, moronic slapstick gags, performances by chart-topping musicians—Roadie is so fundamentally bizarre that it’s clear Rudolph had not yet strayed from his arthouse roots.

          Corpulent rock singer Meat Loaf stars as Travis W. Redfish, a Texas trucker who lives with his screechy sister, Alice Poo (Rhonda Bates), and his weird father, wheelchair-bound gadget addict Corpus C. Redfish (Art Carney). While out driving a beer truck one morning, Travis spots attractive young Lola Bouilliabase (Kaki Hunter) sitting in the window of a disabled motor home. In the course of repairing the motor home, Travis discovers that Lola is part of the entourage for a “rock circus” organized by megastar promoter Mohammed Johnson (Don Cornelius). Then, through a convoluted series of events, Travis winds up accompanying Lola and her team to a show, where Travis saves the day by setting up equipment for a Hank Williams Jr. performance in record time. (Never mind asking how Travis learned to install amps and mics.) Mohammed hires Travis to be a roadie. Then, while Travis is “brain-locked” thanks to a head injury, Lola and Mohammed take Travis to Los Angeles, where his roadie adventure continues.

          Everything in Roadie is goofy and loud, from Meat Loaf’s histrionic lead performance to the various absurd plot contrivances, so the picture’s limited appeal stems from its madcap vibe. (Think nonsense dialogue along the lines of, “What’s the relationship between Styrofoam and the planet Jupiter?” or, “Yaga-yaga-yaga, this is the Redfish saga!”) Some of the jokes are mildly amusing, but many are merely strange. On the plus side, Roadie features onscreen musical performances by notables including Alice Cooper, Asleep at the Wheel, Blondie, Roy Orbison, and others. (Cooper and Blondie’s Deborah Harry also contribute sizable acting performances.) Somehow, the quirkiness of Roadie keeps the picture watchable, albeit sometimes in a traffic-accident sort of way. Particularly when the picture grinds toward its outlandish finale, which reflects either desperation or a failure of imagination, Roadie is like a guilty-pleasure rock song—studying the lyrics too closely takes the fun out of enjoying the groove.

Roadie: FUNKY

The Barn of the Naked Dead (1974)

          Originally titled Nightmare Circus and then rechristened Terror Circus, this horror flick truly deserves its final moniker, The Barn of the Naked Dead, not so much because the title accurately describes the movie’s content—it does not—but because the title captures the film’s sordid aesthetic. Taking the ’70s trope of misogynistic killers to an absurd extreme, the picture introduces a character who kidnaps women, chains them inside a barn, calls them “animals,” and trains them to perform circus tricks. Whenever one of the women gets out of line, the psycho punishes her with a whip or by leaving the woman alone with a hungry lion or a lethal snake. Even though modern history has proven that men who treat women this horribly exist in reality, it’s one thing to make a thoughtful drama about the monsters in our midst (e.g., The Boston Strangler or Helter Skelter), and it’s another thing to transform the flailing of pretty girls into drive-in entertainment. Further, it’s galling to learn that The Barn of the Naked Dead was cowritten and directed by Alan Rudolph (under a pseudonym) early in his career. After all, once he blossomed under Robert Altman’s tutelage, Rudolph made a series of offbeat indie films with strong female protagonists—atonement for participating in this project, perhaps?

          Anyway, the plot is painfully simple. When three showgirls experience car trouble while crossing the desert on the way to a gig in Las Vegas, handsome stranger Andre (Andrew Prine) offers to drive them to his house, where they can use a phone to call for help. Once there, the showgirls discover a barn full of captive women, and they’re added to the prison population at gunpoint. Eventually, the lead showgirl, Simone (Manuela Thiess), gets Andre’s attention because she reminds him of his long-dead mother. This precipitates lots of dialogue scenes about Andre’s abandonment issues. However, it’s hard to take the character stuff seriously since The Barn of the Naked Dead also includes a killer mutant who is horribly scarred from radiation poisoning. Adding to the overall unpleasantness is a dissonant score by Tommy Vig, which waffles between repetitive go-go grooves and sharp atonal stings. As for leading man Prine, he doesn’t come close to elevating the material, instead offering a mundane screamy-twitchy turn in the familiar Anthony Perkins style.

The Barn of the Naked Dead: LAME

Welcome to L.A. (1976)

          After making a pair of schlocky horror flicks, writer-director Alan Rudolph finally got to make a proper film with the help of A-list auteur Robert Altman, who served as Rudolph’s producer for Welcome to L.A. Given the “Robert Altman presents” imprimatur, however, it’s hard not to perceive Welcome to L.A. as Altman Lite, especially since Rudolph emulates his producer’s filmmaking style by presenting a loosely intertwined mosaic of cynical stories. Yet while Altman’s best ensemble movies sparkle with idiosyncratic humor, Welcome to L.A. is monotonous, a downbeat slog comprising vapid Los Angelenos doing rotten things for unknowable reasons.

          The character holding everything together is Carroll Barber (Keith Carradine), a self-absorbed rich kid who fancies himself a songwriter and who spends the movie accruing sexual conquests. Some of the uninteresting people orbiting Carroll are Ann (Sally Kellerman), a pathetic real-estate agent given to humiliating displays of unrequited affection; Karen (Geraldine Chaplin), a spacey housewife who spends her days riding around the city in taxis; Linda (Sissy Spacek), a ditzy housekeeper who works topless; Nona (Lauren Hutton), a kept woman who takes arty photographs; and Susan (Viveca Lindfors), an insufferably pretentious talent representative in love with a much-younger man. Harvey Keitel and Denver Pyle appear as well, though Rudolph is clearly much more interested in the feminine mystique than the inner lives of men.

          Rudolph structures the film like a concept album, using music to bridge vignettes, and this arty contrivance doesn’t work. Part of the problem is that singer-songwriter Richard Baskin, who provides the song score and also performs several numbers onscreen, prefers the song form of the shapeless dirge. Which, come to think of it, is not a bad way to describe Welcome to L.A. While Rudolph obviously envisioned some sort of Grand Statement about the ennui of modern city dwellers, he instead crafted an interminable recitation of trite themes. Worse, Rudolph employs juvenile flourishes such as having characters stare at the camera, as if viewers will somehow see into the characters’ souls. Sorry, but isn’t providing insight the filmmaker’s job? (Available as part of the MGM Limited Collection on Amazon.com)

Welcome to L.A.: LAME

Remember My Name (1978)

          After making a minor splash with Welcome to L.A. (1976), writer-director Alan Rudolph stepped out from under the shadow of his artistic patron, Robert Altman, with this unapologetically arty drama that focuses on behavior and mood instead of narrative clarity and momentum. So, while Welcome to L.A. feels like watered-down Altman with its myriad interconnected storylines, Remember My Name is purely and eccentrically Rudolph, a cryptic meditation on strange characters wading through a languorous haze of ennui and music.

          Rudolph favorite Geraldine Chaplin stars as Emily, a mystery woman who stalks a married couple while building an oddly itinerant lifestyle that involves camping out in a depressing apartment and working at a dead-end job as a general-store clerk. We eventually learn that she’s an ex-convict, and that the husband of the couple she’s stalking is her estranged ex-husband (Anthony Perkins), with whom she has some sort of unfinished business. And that’s pretty much the entire plot, because instead of revealing story points, Rudolph spends the movie showing Emily and the other characters living the mundane reality of their mundane lives: There are innumerable scenes of people driving to and from their homes and jobs; bringing home groceries and other household items; and making arrangements for doing things at later dates.

          As strung together by a soundtrack featuring blues songs performed by the forceful Alberta Hunter, Remember My Name has a distinct vibe but not very much energy. The last 30 minutes or so have a pulse because the story evolves rapidly once Chaplin confronts her ex, but until then, the leisurely pacing and opaque plotting are frustrating; it’s easy to envision some viewers getting caught up in the smoky atmosphere, but I’m among those immune to the film’s charms. Chaplin expresses the weird and needy aspects of her character effectively, and it’s a joy to watch Perkins play an ordinary character instead of a freak, but Berry Berenson (Perkins’ spouse in the movie and real life) is a blank slate, and Moses Gunn is underused as Chaplin’s policeman neighbor, so the performances don’t slot together comfortably. Helping matters somewhat are appearances by Dennis Franz, Jeff Goldblum, and Alfre Woodard in minor roles.

Remember My Name: FUNKY