Death, Drugs, And Ray Dennis Steckler!

I'm fascinated by Ray Dennis Steckler in the same way I'm fascinated by Ed Wood. Both were maverick filmmakers who operated on shoestring budgets (or no budgets sometimes) and produced a pretty ample catalogue of movies. What makes them kindred directors is not the cheapness of their movies necessarily, but the downright sincerity of their efforts. They weren't out to make bad movies necessarily, unlike other cheapo directors like Jerry Warren and Larry Buchanan, but were thinking of themselves of as auteurs ignored by the movie powers, even cast aside. Both Steckler and Wood ended up making porn flicks to earn their daily loaf. Unlike Wood though, we have Steckler explaining his movies at length in sometimes fascinating commentaries that reveal the secrets of his filmmaking and sometimes uncover the scars in his soul as a result of his lack of financial success in Hollywood. He says again and again and again that his complaints are not "sour grapes" but clearly they are just that. In this post I want to take a quick glance at four of Steckler's later films, some made simultaneously with his porno efforts. 

The first and perhaps most accomplished relatively speaking is Body Fever, which is a film noir effort in color made on the cheap and using that to best effect. It features Steckler's wife Carolyn Brandt at the time, a leggy actress who almost exclusively appeared in her hubby's movies. She's pretty and at times when shot correctly striking, but her acting is pretty average. The real standout in this movie about a detective and a jewel thief evading gangsters and finding love is Gary Kent, a Hollywood stuntman of some reputation who does a great job as a pretty nasty thug in this movie. Kent is the guy who inspired the Brad Pitt stuntman character in Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and it's easy to see how. His body is lithe and you can tell this is a guy who can handle himself. This movie features some of the same sets (in Steckler's basement of all places) used in the porn flick Synthia the Devil Doll. 

Blood Shack is one of the most curious flicks I've ever seen. It's shot silent with a modicum of sound added in after the fact to marginal effect. It's setting is the real "star" of this movie, as rundown a piece of property as you're likely to find, a house that seems open to elements most of the time. Supposedly this is a haunted house, haunted by an Indian spirit called "The Chooper". That in fact is an alternate title for this movie and the one I prefer just for its weirdness. The title comes from an earlier Steckler movie The Lemon Grove Kids and a couple of minor characters from space called "Choopers". One of those costumes is re-used here and that's enough apparently for Steckler. Once again Carolyn Brandt is on hand as well as longtime ally Ray Haydock, a rockabilly singer and comic book writer among other things. Haydock would be killed in a tragic car accident soon after this movie was completed alas. The Chooper kills several people in the flick with minor gore and one of the grossest mattresses in film history. All that is crummy about Steckler movies is on display and all that is wonderful is there too. This 1971 movie was made at the same time as a porn flicked called Hillbilly Sex Clan, which shares the set as well as at least one actor from Blood Shack. 

The Hollywood Strangler Meets The Skid Row Slasher is a Steckler movie from his later period. long after he'd made many many porn movies, many set in and around Las Vegas. Steckler had moved there after his divorce from Brandt but that doesn't stop her from appearing for a final time for Steckler in this weird weird slip of cinema. I'm not spoiling it much by saying that Carolyn Brandt plays a bookstore owner with a compulsion to stab hobos and bums. Also on hand is an actor named Pierre Agostini who is blessed with a rugged face that does him great service in this movie in which he strangles many many women over and over. These two killers circle one another in a bizarre silent dance of  psychotic co-dependence and finally have it out. This movie is silent and that adds to the strangeness of it, but it does limit its narrative possibilities. He re-uses footage from one of his porn films in this one called Sex Rink. 

In 1986 Steckler makes another movie and he revives the Hollywood Strangler and moves him to Las Vegas. In a strange effort to create something of continuity in his movies all of Steckler's psychos share the last name "Click", first used in The Thrill Killers many years before. The Las Vegas Serial Killer is the least watchable of these movies, because the repetition of the other Strangler flick is repeated but without the relative complexity of the other psycho. Neither of these movies is really that good, but the other is slightly better. We follow to lame thieves this time when we're not watching Agostini strangle some unsuspecting woman. The movie rambles around Las Vegas and like many of Steckler's movies does a pretty decent job of documenting the real world at that time. The Vegas in this movie is long gone, and there is a wisp of nostalgia from glimpses of those old casinos. 

Unless like me you have a fascination with bad movies I cannot recommend these flicks, but I do say you will earn a lot about Ray Dennis Steckler from listening to his sometimes bizarre commentaries. It's often what he doesn't say that is remarkable, ignoring as if it didn't exist his porn career. In fact I've not mentioned that Steckler doesn't use his real name as director any of these flicks, but rather the name  "Wolfgang Schmidt" He has other names for his porn flicks such as "Cindy Lou Sutters" and "Sven Christian" or "Harry Nixon", so he seems to think that's enough that folks won't find out about his other career. One thing that comes clear listening to Steckler talk about and over his old flims is that he never stopped loving his first wife, he is completely besotted with her. I feel sorry for his second wife as she barely rates a mention though being in the last movie in fact.  Steckler died in 2009, but his movies live on in a way and he did find the immortality he sought as a Hollywood director...sort of.

Note: I have not yet dealt with one of Stecker's most famous movies -- Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, but I hope to do so later.  

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American Flagg - The Definitive Collection Volume One!

Sharp! Spicy! Savvy! Those are three words that might well be used to describe Howard Chaykin's 1980's action adventure satire American Flagg. This comic was one of several in the initial push from First Comics, at one time a primary contender for best new comic book company, but which fell on hard times and then faded away. American Flagg though has outlasted the company that first published his adventures. This first of two volumes from Dynamic Forces presents the first six issues of American Flagg. The six issues are really two longer tales which feel more like a movie or small limited series than a comic book, clearly something Chaykin was attempting to achieve. 

The first of the two trilogies is titled "Hard Times" and introduces us to our hero Reuben Flagg, a Jewish man who is something of a burnout media star looking to find some measure of success as a law-enforcement office in the "Plexus Rangers". The America that Flagg finds is a fractured one in the year 2031. It's dominated and controlled by business interests which seem as eager to sell it off as to find some means to govern it effectively. The Plex Mall formerly known as Chicago is our setting as Flagg tries to find a place for himself working for a tough-as-nails boss named Hilton "Hammerhead" Kreiger, the top kick of the Rangers. Flagg must also deal with some lovely dames, one Mandy Krieger - Hammerhead's daughter and a classic whore-with-a-golden-heart Gretchen Holstrum. There's also the openly corrupt Mayor Blitz and his wild daughter Medea Blitz. And I haven't even mentioned Flagg's closest ally, Raul the talking cat or the displaced "King of England" who goes by the simple name "Bill". In the first tale we see the effects of subliminal messaging being used to create havoc and violence in some of the community through the use of a pirate communications network called "Q-USA". Who runs Q-USA and why is a focus of the story and by the end we are well pleased by the answers I think. 

In the second of the two larger stories we find Reuben sent to South America in a yarn called "Southern Comfort". His mission is to oversee a pirate basketball game between the local team the "Headhunters" and the teams to the South. Flagg finds himself up to his neck in high-tech intrigue and adventure as the team heads down to the venues where corrupt Rangers seem to be up to all kinds of somewhat depraved no good. 

Politics and sex dominate these  American Flagg stories, as the creator Howard Chaykin is not skittish about dealing with either. The politics are both old school and new with a Jewish hero confronted with a rebranded Nazi party taking advantage of the chaos to find foothold in the broken country. There are many other factions from drug-fueled biker gangs to sundry groups of political terrorists. Add in the random crime and it's a hectic environment that our hero is called upon to manage. And hero he is, a moral man though not a perfect one by any measure, a man up to the task both interested in helping others, doing his duty and keeping his own skin intact. 

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Dojo Classics - The Complete Normalman!

This is an exceedingly fun black and white comic book volume that likely needs to be in every true blue comic book fan's collection somewhere. For relatively small money you can own The Complete normalman by Jim Valentino. Valentino, one of the guys who would become part of the infamous Image group started his comics journey with this satire on the superhero comic which posited a "normal man" on a world overrun with supermen, superwomen, superteens, and such.

normalman began as a try-out back-up feature in Dave Sim's Cerebus, specifically issues fifty-six and fifty-seven. Then as quick as that it leaped into its own self-titled comic run from the Aardvark-Vanaheim brand. What we get is a romp of a soap opera with all manner of gags and comic book tropes getting trounced before our very eyes. It's a wild ride, but a familiar one to anyone who has  read as many classic comics as folks likely to frequent this blog have done.

The covers to the series are remarkable in that each is a spoof of a different genre and most feature a particularly famous classic comic book cover turned more than a bit sideways for our viewing pleasure. Here they are, many with their inspirations.

normalman even makes a guest appearance in Aardvark-Vanaheim's Journey series, a clever spin on the marketing the character often ridicules.

Then thee came a change, and this is where I left the series originally many moons ago. Aardvark-Vanaheim underwent a split as Dave Sim and his wife parted ways each taking some of the titles with them. normalman became part of the Renegade Press brand after one joint offering.

Renegade Press then went on to finish the original storyline.

The story wrapped up appropriately in the normalman 3-D annual in 1986.

Slave Labor Graphics collected the saga in 1987. And that was all she wrote for normalman and his pals for many years.

Then after the aforementioned Image brand was ignited Jim Valentino dusted off normalman for a one-off romp with Donald Simpson's Megaton Man as well as many other Indy stars of bygone eighties.

In 2004 normalman celebrated its twentieth anniversary with a new story, the last to date.

All this comics goodness can be found in glorious black and white in the pages of The Complete normalman.

Dig up a copy if you can, it's well worth the effort, especially for those who are tired of paying too much for too little entertainment.

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The Sunday Funnies - Captain Easy 1940-1943!

The fourth and final volume of Fantagraphic's Roy Crane's Captain Easy - Soldier of Fortune - The Complete Sunday Newspaper Strips 1940-1943 ain't about Captain Easy as much as it really ought to be. That's not to say that the strips aren't enjoyable, they are, but Easy slips into the background and this time it's not his old buddy Wash Tubbs who takes the spotlight but a character named Lulu Belle, an amazing woman who is no beauty but is strong and able to fight with anyone. She in fact was a strong woman in the circus for many years and though she's had her heart broken a few times by men still seeks love. 

What she seeks with Captain Easy though is adventure and she and Easy and Wash head to Guatemala where they encounter a sexy bandit named Teresa Grande. It's wild as the trio tires to find an ancient treasure while protecting it and themselves from the duplicitous Teresa. Then they find themselves on a boat with two tigers and captain who doesn't know really what the danger is until it's too late. Our trio end up on "Ghost Island" where they find a feral beauty dubbed "Wolf Girl". She doesn't speak, but she full of shapely action as our heroes attempt to tame her and bring her into civilization. They are rescued and Wash heads for home while Easy and Lulu Belle end up accidently working for foreign spies building a secret landing strip. In a battle with Bull Dawson they end that threat and get back to the good old U.S.A. They find quite a few light-hearted adventures at this point with Lulu Belle taking a leading role in the strip. 

As she looks for companionship and work she ends up with a crazy rich guy who thinks he can make rubber from frogs and later she and Easy help out the Wolf Girl as she tries to fit into society with some difficulty. Easy is employed to protect Horatio Boardman,  a rich idiot from gold diggers and soon enough one named "Baby Doll" shows up. There are more hijinks and even a trouble causing ostrich named Lucille. Augustus Mervin Gasby drops on their doorstep as Lulu Belle and Easy try to run a diner and eats them out of business almost until Easy finds he has some talent and attempts to get him into professional baseball. The duo run afoul of drug smugglers who prove quite dangerous. Then C. Wallis Hollis shows up and he's a swindler and Lulu Belle's ex-husband, who she still pines for. More trouble shows up when a criminal fresh from jail wears a zoot suit and leads a gang of murderers. later Lulu Belle is tricked into kidnapping a woman before Easy saves the day. Lulu Belle ends up in jail but Lonny Plunkett returns in time to use his magic skills to get her in and out of jail on a regular basis. With Plunkett's arrival Captain Easy fades out of his own comic strip not to be seen in it again. Later "Roy Boy" falls in love with Lulu Belle, but that's not good since Roy Boy is a gorilla. Then C. Wallis Hollis returns and Lulu Belle is able to turn the tables on him again to wrap the strip up. 

Roy Crane with assistance of Leslie Turner keeps the strip lively and fun despite the profound lack of high adventure in the latter days. It felt more like a screwball comedy than anything truly daring. With the arrival of Lulu Belle the focus shifts to the fairer sex for much of the strips final two years with the Wolf Girl storylines being my favorites. There are more chuckles than gasps, so it's probably good that Captain Easy finally came in for a landing for good, at least as far as Crane was concerned. The next stop for Roy Crane would be Buz Sawyer, but that's for another day. 

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