Wild Guitar / The Choppers

Rating:
Summary: The DVD release of the month!
Review: Arch Hall, Jr. appeared in a handful of films in the early 1960s, mostly working for his father, and this DVD presents two of his best. "Best" being a relative term, of course. Arch couldn't act, couldn't sing, and had a face like a pudgy spider monkey, but MAN were his films memorable. He's a favorite around our house.

In THE CHOPPERS (Arch's film debut), Arch and his gang (including the grandson of Charles "Ming the Merciless" Middleton) vandalize autos and sing such classics as "Monkey in my Hatband" and "Koko Joe". In WILD GUITAR, Arch is Bud Eagle, rock & roll singer, in a rags to riches story. Songs include "Valerie" (not the one by the Monkees) and the unforgettable "Twist Fever", sung on the beach. Watch Arch skipping along the sand, trying to emulate Chuck Berry's duck walk; it's one of the great moments in bad screen history. Also look for the DVDs of EEGAH! and THE SADIST, and hopefully somebody'll give us NASTY RABBIT and DEADWOOD '76, Arch's other pictures, plus a CD of Arch's song stylings (I cobbled together my own from the movies' soundtracks). Mr. Hall, wherever you are, please know that your fans love you!

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful prints highlight solid Arch Hall Jr. two-fer
Review: I admit it. After buying Allday's terrific The Sadist DVD last year, and then Eegah!, I have been sucked into the Arch Hall Jr. cult. This Something Weird DVD combines his first movie (The Choppers) and third (after Eegah!) on one disc, and while neither is as good as The Sadist or as bad as Eegah!, fans of Hall or campy early-1960s cheapies in general should be delighted with this set. Written and produced by Arch Hall Sr. (who also plays a crusading reporter and narrates Dragnet-style), The Choppers is a kind of "JD RFD" flick, concerning a gang of car-stripping teens operating out of a poultry delivery truck. Arch Jr. plays Cruiser (he "likes pretty girls and ready cash"), who functions as lookout for the "choppers" in his awesome street rod. The kids, who fence their stolen parts to nasty, slimy Bruno VeSota, owner of Big Deal Auto Salvage, have cool nicknames (Torch, Flip), talk in hipster slang, cruise the local Chick-a-Dilly in some very custom wheels, and come from generally messed-up backgrounds (Cruiser's dad was machine-gunned in WWII as he attempted to parachute to safety; Torch fronts booze money to his loser alcoholic parents). The juvenile leads are actually pretty competent, though William Shaw as Lt. Fleming should take some sort of prize for his incredibly wooden performance. There is some bad low comedy involving the two cops and an amusing scene where the choppers strip their unmarked car while they have lunch. Knockout Playboy playmate Marianne Gaba, as Officer Jenks' girlfriend Liz, always seems to be just hanging around looking luscious and whining alot. Three Arch Hall Jr. compositions, including "Konga Joe" and "Monkey in My Hatband" (!?) are heard on the soundtrack (he listens to himself on his car radio) as well as some fairly decent jazzy "JD" cues. It all winds up in a surprisingly violent (for the time) standoff with the heat at the scrapyard. While a bit lighter in tone than my favorite JD stuff (Beat Generation, Teenage Doll, Night of Evil), The Choppers still delivers an hour of solid entertainment for most any JD or hot rod movie fan. (Note: Vilmos Zsigmond shot some 2nd unit on this one, apparently warming up for The Sadist.)
Wild Guitar presents the story of Bud Eagle, small-town hick and aspiring pop star with a towering blonde pompadour, who travels to L.A., guitar in hand, where he meets pretty go-go dancer Vickie (Nancy Czar) at a greasy spoon. She immediately lands him a slot on a live rock'n'roll TV show, and Bud becomes an instant sensation (dig that cheesy "raining Monopoly money" montage). He's soon being managed by scummy hardball shyster agent Mike McCauley (played a little TOO convincingly by dad Arch Sr.), who sets him up with a swank apartment and new guitar but breaks up Vickie and Bud and proceeds to manipulate and cheat him at every turn. (There's a twang in Arch Sr.'s voice that reminds me of Stuart Lancaster as the lecherous Old Man in Faster Pussycat.) First-time director Ray Dennis Steckler is memorable as McCauley's creepy henchman Steak, Arch Jr.'s musical interludes (especially "Vickie") will send your cringe-o-meter off the scale, and Vickie's big go-go dance number simply oozes camp. The occasional doses of whitebread corn (e.g. the ice skating sequence) and terrible "comedy" involving some lowlife extortionist kidnappers are thankfully offset by some mild flirtations with sleaze (the hiring of Daisy the hooker; McCauley and Steak's general ickiness). There's even a "whirling camera while they dance and kiss" scene like in Carrie (could DePalma be an Arch Hall Jr. fan??), and the ending where Bud forgives McCauley will make you want to pull your hair out. To be sure, this is NOT a Good Movie (remember, these are the people behind Eegah!), but it's probably a more realistic portrayal of the phoniness, backstabbing, payola, and general crookedness of the music industry than your typical Elvis flick and easily as entertaining if not more so. Highly recommended for bad movie aficionados.
The "Special Edition" extras are moderately entertaining, with the trailer collection (The Choppers, Wild Guitar, Rat Fink, The Beatniks, Wild Ones on Wheels, Married Too Young, Teenage Zombies) the highlight (although the trailer for Wild Love seems totally out of place here). There are two odd but only faintly amusing Dance Craze and Twist Craze shorts, and Hot Car, an informative if somewhat dry 1958 30-minute Police Science Foundation training film, concerned with identifying stolen cars and apprehending car thieves. The value of the extras is dampened tremendously by Something Weird's usual practice of sticking their big ugly logo down in the corner of the screen.
The good news is that this DVD is all about the feature presentations and they both look absolutely stunning. Based on other SW discs I've purchased, my hopes for this one were not high, but I have to admit they have delivered virtually pristine prints for both Wild Guitar and The Choppers. Wild Guitar is perhaps a bit crisper and cleaner, but both exhibit excellent black level, tonal values, shadow/highlight detail, and sharpness throughout. There is some very light speckling apparent on both, but that's it! No jump cuts, no lining, no nothing; you won't have to worry about upgrading from these babies. If the extras had not the stinking logos on them this would be a five-star disc.

Rating:
Summary: Wild Guitar is a classic B movie . Better than Citizen Kane
Review: Not in wide screen, but I doubt if this movie was shot in widescreen. Most likely an 8mm camera ha ! But who cares ?
This movie is gloriously dumb. Dig those crazy camera angles in the music sequences ! Better than Citizen Kane, which isn't saying much ha ha. The choppers is a decent flick. The 1 bad thing is that 1 song was edited from the choppers: "monkeys in my hatband" . If you want the movie with this song in it, get the dvd "Born to be wild" from brentwood home video. Too bad the Brentwood version is a very poor transfer.

Rating:
Summary: Wild Guitar is a classic B movie . Better than Citizen Kane
Review: Not in wide screen, but I doubt if this movie was shot in widescreen. Most likely an 8mm camera ha ! But who cares ?
This movie is gloriously dumb. Dig those crazy camera angles in the music sequences ! Better than Citizen Kane, which isn't saying much ha ha. The choppers is a decent flick. The 1 bad thing is that 1 song was edited from the choppers: "monkeys in my hatband" . If you want the movie with this song in it, get the dvd "Born to be wild" from brentwood home video. Too bad the Brentwood version is a very poor transfer.

Rating:
Summary: The Choppers: Tommy Ivo's T Bucket?
Review: Not sure. But that looks a lot like TV Tommy Ivo's Buick powered T bucket street rod that Arch Hall, Jr is zipping around in.

This story of young car thieves doesn't completely flop thanks to the film's somewhat business-like pace. There's a kind of sincerity of effort to 'The Choppers' that makes you stop laughing at the amateurish acting and dialog long enough to pay attention. The ex-Playmate of the Month in the role of the insurance guy's always hungry secretary provides another reason to pay attention.