Starring Herve Villechaize, Susan Tyrell, Marie-Pascal Elfman, and Phil Gordon
Directed by Richard Elfman
Music and Lyrics by various
Our second cult musical of the week jumps ahead five years to a very different rock group. The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo began life in 1972 as a surrealist street performance troupe. They added 30's and 40's jazz and their own material when original founder Richard Elfman's brother Danny joined in 1976. By 1979, Danny Elfman wanted to take the group in a whole new direction. This movie was seen as a way for Richard Elfman to transition from making music to making movies, and for Oingo Boingo to move from being a theatrical troupe to a New Wave rock group. How successful were they? Let's begin as the title card explains about the house with the entrance to the Sixth Dimension in its basement and find out...
The Story: Drug and slum lord Huckleberry P. Jones (Gene Cunningham) sells one of his houses to the Hercules family. They're told not to open the door to the basement, the Forbidden Zone. Sister Frenchy (Marie-Pascal Elfman) does it anyway and is captured by the Princess (Gisele Lindley), who brings her to King Fausto (Villechaize) and Queen Doris (Tyrell) of the Sixth Dimension. Fausto falls for Frenchy and wants to marry her. The Queen is insanely jealous and orders their frog servant Bust Rod (Jan Stuart Schwartz) to throw her in the dungeon.
Meanwhile, Frenchy's brother Flash (Gordon) and their Gramps (Hyman Diamond) have also gone to rescue her, but are taken prisoner as well. Their father (Cunningham) is blasted into the Sixth Dimension and ends up captured as well. Flash and Gramps escape and discover the first Queen (Viva), who wants her revenge on Doris for seducing her and locking her in the dungeon. There's also their meek friend Squeezit (Matthew Bright), who reluctantly goes looking for Frenchy and his sibling Rene (Bright), only to run a foul of Satan (Danny Elfman) and his Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.
The Song and Dance: Um, yeah. You can't get much more out there than this movie. With its wacky pastel cardboard sets and surreal animation, this is about as cult as you can get. No wonder Danny Elfman would go on to work extensively with Tim Burton for years. They share a very similar sensibility. For all that they insult every race out there, this movie is surprisingly decent to its transvestite characters. At the very least, Renee and Squeezit are no worse or less strange than anyone else. Bright and Tyrell come off best as the sensitive drag duo Squeezit and Rene and Susan Tyrell as the Queen who is determined to fight off every newcomer and keep her throne and her short man.
The Numbers: We open with the title song over the animated credits, performed by Danny Elfman and the Mystic Knights. Our first full-on number is a version of the standard "Some of These Days," performed by Ma, Pa, and Frenchy to explain why they shouldn't go into the Sixth Dimension. We then go down below for an instrumental version as a mostly-naked chorus performs it in the Sixth Dimension. Frenchy dances to the Josephine Baker number "La Petite Tonkinoise" during class, joined by two blind dancers.
Frenchy arrives in the Sixth Dimension finds The Kipper Kids dressed as boxers joining real-life Latin singer Miguelito Valdes singing "Bim Bam Boom" in the ring. Queen Doris' introductory song is "Witch's Egg," on why she's such a bad girl and doesn't want to share her hubby. Frenchy briefly performs another Baker number, "Plure," while begging for help. Queen Doris does not like her husband watching this number one bit! "The Alphabet Song" is a spoof of the Three Stooges' "Swinging the Alphabet" that begins with Miss Feldman (Kendric Wolfe) giving their own version and ends with it becoming a rock number and those "kids" tossing out some pretty sweet dance moves.
Rene laments what the Queen will do to them, while Doris rages about the "Queen's Revenge" and how she intends to eliminate her rivals. "Pico and Sepulveda" is the chorus number for Pa Hercules and the workers at the La Brea Tar Pits, singing with the real voices of Felix Figureroa and His Orchestra. Satan himself and his men get to lay into the jazz parody "Squeezit the Moocher" as Squeezit begs to help Frenchy and his sister. Queen Doris is not impressed with Mr. Bernstein's "Yiddishe Charleston" and zaps him out of existence. The wild "Finale" brings everyone who is still alive together to celebrate rock, jazz, and taking over the universe.
Trivia: The movie was filmed in black and white. It was originally going to be hand colored, but that was eventually discarded as expensive and inefficient. It would be digitally colorized under Richard Elfman's supervision in 2008. (I reviewed the colorized version currently at Tubi.)
Richard and Marie-Pascal Elfman were married at the time. They originally financed the movie repairing and selling houses. They ran out of money but were helped by a benefactor.
Richard Elfman has been trying to make a sequel to this for years and has discussed putting out collectibles and books based after the Sixth Dimension characters as well.
What I Don't Like: If anything in the above descriptions offends, annoys, upsets, or mystifies you, this probably won't be your thing. This movie insults pretty much everyone else besides transvestites, including gay people, Jews, and African-Americans. The opening animation includes blackface, and the school "kids" include gay and black stereotypes. (The Mystic Knights' makeup in the "Squeezit the Moocher" sequence and the clown drug seller in the opening are said to be more obviously blackface in the original black and white version.) Violence, heavy swearing, women who spend the movie running around in little or no clothing, and some noisy and very casual sex makes this for adult cult movie fans only.
The Big Finale: Some things are just too weird, even for me. I thought this had some great music, but was otherwise a bit much for my taste. If you're a bigger fan of Danny Elfman or Oingo Boingo than me or are more into the weirder side of his work, you might find a lot more in the Hercules family's adventures in the Sixth Dimension than I did.
Home Media: Easily found pretty much everywhere, including on disc and free with commercials at Tubi.
No comments:
Post a Comment