One of the endearing traits of late 70s American cinema was the unholy convergence of producers and directors with dubious talent, and aging Hollywood stars in the abyss of their careers. The fact that Ida Lupino wrapped things up with My Boys are Good Boys is almost as depressing as watching your own grandmother unable to reach her orange juice from a hospital bed. This fibrous cinematic stool, which recently floated to the surface of my stagnant perceptive swimming pool, serves as a pristine example of this convergence. A big shout out to my wife for noticing the Ida Lupino double feature during our recent visit to the Yankee Dollar store, and throwing it into our cart, along with our off brand strawberry scented shampoo and a tube of hydrocortisone ointment. One of dozens of quality releases from eastwestdvd.com, this disc also includes a made for TV crapfest with Lupino and Andy Griffith, Strangers In 7A. But I'll save that one for the prep night before my next colonoscopy.
My Boys Are Good Boys is directed by Bethel G. Buckalew, who previously had worked on assorted Harry Novak smut offerings, such as The Pigkeeper's Daughter and Country Cuzzins. What this one lacks in gratuitous sex and nudity it makes up for with its schizophrenic hesitation over whether it wants to be an Al Adamson movie or an ABC After School Special. And in addition to Ida Lupino, you also get Lloyd Nolan and Ralph Meeker, plus David Doyle from Charlie's Angels. Lupino and Meeker are irremediably awful, but Lloyd Nolan somehow manages to salvage his dignity from this mess by slapping a band-aid over a few of the dozens of problems in a script that makes less sense than a Scientology tract proffered by a grinning idiot on a public sidewalk.
And I haven't even mentioned the soundtrack, which much to my amazement is attributed to Joe Siracusa, a former drummer for Spike Jones and His City Slickers. Imagine the most annoying fucking sounds you've ever heard come out of an analog synthesizer, and then imagine what they would sound like coming out of your dog's ass, and you're getting close. And it's always there, like an ear infection that requires a triple round of antibiotics. The title theme is delivered by rockabilly asterisk Dorsey Burnette, and because there is no God, it's available on YouTube for your listening pleasure.
Oh yes, there's also a fat kid named "Chunky." He eats a lot. He likes candy bars. It gets funnier every time they mention it. And don't miss David Doyle's over the top rant near the end, in which he passionately defends the honor of the juvenile delinquents in his custody with the coherence of an Al Qaeda training video. Or the hilarious closing punchline, in which a teenage girl realizes that the cop who is arresting her is the guy who tried to rape her earlier in the movie. Really, does it get any funnier than that?
EastWest Entertainment has graciously unearthed this jewel and presented it after a painstaking restoration process. I would guess this involved ripping the video from a sharing website, converting it to the shittiest mpeg available, then blowing it up into a glorious, low resolution mess, with lots of compression noise anytime there's more on-screen action than in a typical Bela Tarr movie or a National Geographic documentary on snails.
Oh what the hell, maybe I'll go ahead and watch Strangers in 7A. Why wait for a colonoscopy?
No comments