—- The idea for Dunce Codex came to me in the summer of 2020. At that time it was just a wish to put together something cool and unconventional. I didn’t even have a name for it. I just wanted writing that would speak to people, and I wanted writers who were willing to take chances, especially if those chances involved the risk of fail-ure. This idea floated around my skull until finally I mentioned it to my friends, and they encouraged me to pursue it.

—- But why two books? The answer is simply that I received more work than I had anticipated. And in the event that I’m unable to continue with Dunce, I wanted to put together something substantial, something of quality, in short something that best represents what I initially envisioned. I believe this present collection does just that.

—- Thank you to everyone who sent their work over for consideration. This would not be possible without you. Thank you, Amy, Benjamin, Dennis, Jack and Jac, for all your support and for your contributions to the magazine. And to David McDe-vitt and Mady Barudin I am forever indebted-David for providing the cover art to the magazine and Mady for formatting its pages. Both of you put up with my many neverminds and last-minute changes, and I am grateful.

—Roo

 

DUNCE CODEX CONTRIBUTORS

POETRY

Rachel Stewart, Jen Frantz, PJ Lombardo, Brittany Menjivar, Eva Kristina Olsson, Johannes Göransson, Manuel Chavarria, Sammi Tuttle, Carolina Peña, Naomi Huan, Emily B. Migliazzo, Sophie Appel, Rachel Lapides, Sophia Marina, Sara Gilmore, Jackson Calder, Charalampos Tzanakis, J.E. Rodriguez, TR Brady, Myke C-Town, Javier Estrada, Spencer Yost-Wolff, Priscilla Jasmine, Harley Claes, Jerad Carson, Daniel Joseph Duffy, Payson Whitwell, Clarke e. Andros, Liz Cambra, Julia Barstow, Jan Weissmiller, Lily Lady, Pedro Minet, Alistair McCartney, Thomas Moore, Sam Robinson, Alex Osman, Eileen Myles, Jacqui Alpine, Adam de Petris

PROSE

Frank Demma, Alana Solin, Benjamin Weissman, Selva Imran, Jenn Salcido, Nicholas Wilder Forman, Lamb, Dennis Cooper, Russell Swartz, Fakhri Rajeh, Erin Satterthwaite, Ella Colbert, Rae Wayland, Nik Slackman, Riley Mac, Drew Mosman, Red Danielson, Meat Stevens, Drew Ohringer, Jack Skelley, Derek Fisher, Gabby, Sones, Max Siegmeister, Rob Benvie, Lennie Roeber-Tsiongas, James Yamada, Rebecca, Grace Cyr, Fiona Flynn, Akela Munsey, Jackson Palmer

COVER DESIGN BY DAVID McDEVITT

David McDevitt dreamdavid Writing Art Illustration Video Animation Cars See Poems Love Super Great Earth mcdeath

https://www.dreamdavid.space/

Georgie

Hopeful Love Affair

Single Bike Rack (2023)

Sitting Twisted in Cave Mine (2022)

 

EXCERPTS

Rachel Stewart

IN TIME, CAREFULLY

I am arrested
by the aroma of an apple
for the first time in years.

And on a walk,
a dog so motionless
it wouldn’t dare scatter birds.

Today, cirrus clouds.
It is a charmed life.

I won’t describe the years
without. They were full of dread
and familiar excuses
for why I hadn’t been
descended upon by anything
significant or productive
aside from envy.

As always, to stay the course,
when night approaches
I tell myself
“put yourself to bed,
put yourself to bed.”

To be humble, of course.
I wait my turn.

 

Caro Peña

THIRTEEN

I ran away for the first time when I was thirteen. I grabbed my biggest backpack, went to school, and when the bell rang I hopped on a bus headed a couple towns north instead of going to my grandma’s. I was sent to the psych ward for the first time when I was thirteen. This was when I realized I despised hospitals. Nurses fed us pills every six hours and had us all sitting in front of a television ninety-percent of the day. I guess it would have been sort of relaxing if I wasn’t so restless. My nail biting habit started when I was thirteen. Perhaps it started when I started to register the absurdity of everything. How insanely anxious it made me. One of the icebreaker questions our group leader asked us was, “If you were given the chance to have anything in this world, what would it be?” A patient blurted out, “Money. Money would fix all my problems.” But millionaires kill themselves in their mansions…. I had my first therapy session when I was thirteen. My therapist tried explaining to me that running away from all my problems wasn’t an ideal way to deal with issues. I explained to her that I always dreamt of being a track star.

 

Jacqui Alpine

TOE

Everything is out on the table
I left it there
Might I find a relevant action
Oh!
There’s my foot
I use it to measure sound

 

ON MY DAY OFF

On my day off I stare at the wall
Idea about dyeing my hair
I summon greater neural activity
I reckon that dyeing has nothing to do with death at all
I rest my head on the table
I reckon it would take me 1200 years to write a novel
I get a call from Aunt B
Says ma was a witch
For real like Salem
Walk outside—
New snow

 

Alana Solin

GUNNER

—- Things are not fake before they are real. Gunner’s funeral was Gunner’s funeral. The priest or preacher who spoke gave personal remarks before slipping into an obituary so seamlessly that I thought it was part of what he’d written until I saw it on the website. I’d never read an obituary so detailed and so personal, but that makes sense. Old people don’t get long obituaries put online because they wouldn’t care. Much younger than Gunner, there wouldn’t be a lot to say. I’m glad I didn’t die young. I’m glad they never had to say or not say I loved dragons or dogs or horses.
—- Gunner loved everything, it says in the obituary. Salmon farming in Maine. A solo walk across most of our state. Five languages, three learned from TV and movies. The monastery.
—- I knew he’d do a lot. It sounded like the obituary of someone made-up. And his deep and abiding love of God. It was true, but I never would’ve thought to say it. I didn’t know about the monastery. We’d never spoken about church. We speak well of the dead for a reason.
—- And his fast hold on life. I hadn’t spoken to Gunner for three years. It felt like most of forever. I told people it was two years but it was three.
—- I wanted his death to open up some portal for me. I guess it makes sense that it didn’t. Falls don’t make the cliff…etc.

—- I’m watching TV. The woman glints blonde bent forward by the crash. Tonight, bodies fall from the overpass of my dream.

—- Loss is not my loss, its pockets burning holes through rooms and their negatives. The screen strikes a ring in the sequence, the house runs bright with water gone still.
—-
 Agent of distance like a girl in a pool. The smell of wet skin untransmissible. November in the scores cut into the new season. November sanded of its soft eye and valves. November stunned into flight by an oncoming car, by its own written name. Out through the smaller mouth, burnt November, fresh slicker of rain.

—- Young pit vipers feed lavishly on the tails, channel forty. Another method of doing away. Our knowledge together with structural blue gives violet.

—- Cloud-bending heifer, watch me develop power, all signs point to censure, I’ll pass on all liquor. It’s time to drink water, I’m counting forever, got early so late, I can see but behind it.

—- Tooth-hard headfirst footsure in fool’s paradise, fixed spires scrape the passing sky. Asked for the time, I give my name in reverse.

—- Horizon is a need disguised as a place. At destructive velocity, the world’s slowest train. Ductile under God’s powdered hands, God in coordinates, the miracle chain. Out of the steppe I accept yeses, turn over the blinking wheel to star cud and silver, thumb the car key, the calfskin, and heaven’s mottled lock.

 

Liz Cambra

SNAILS ARE TRANQUIL

1.
Because they appear after
a rain, like other calm things.

2.
Because a snail can’t acquire
literary memory
but can still self-fertilize
which gives a tranquil feeling.

3.
Because Patricia Highsmith
hated all people, especially
women, but loved snails, since snails
do not look like people
or behave like women.

She liked their smooth genders,
one snail lurching onto another
without female hesitancy
without male violence.

4.
Because when a snail dies by accident
it is blameless.

5.
Because when a snail dies by intent
it is after all a small death,
the loss of its lifetime
bearable.

6.
Because there is tranquility
in observing only
what we can bear.

 

Canned Snakes

 

Russell Swartz

Paul, the In-Unit Boyfriend

Stephanie called me, and she was doing her usual thing, needing something. She was heading out of town for a while. Somebody with money who loved her had died and left her something and she was packing up to go backpacking around Yoruba or Malaysia. She talks so damn fast. But the long and short of it was that she had a nice enough apartment close to downtown, close to my work, and she knew I hated my roommates and Mark was a shitty landlord anyways, and did I want to sublease her place? It was cheap enough that I could afford it, which should have been the first red flag, and the property management company didn’t even know what she looked like and I could just walk on in, keys in hand, send the check every month, nobody would bother me. And yeah, she was right, I guess. Mark was a shitty landlord and I did hate my roommates and I could walk to work from her place. She had ten months left on her lease, and if she wasn’t back I could just mail her the paperwork to reup. So I said I’d think about it and she said that I should think quickly, because she had a lot of people who wanted that place, which might have been true but she was a bullshitter. So I thought about it and what the hell. I called her back and asked if I could at least take a tour, and she got kinda shifty and said some like, “yeah, of course, but god, isn’t scheduling these days hard, we’re all so busy,” stuff, and then she was going to the Maldives and all that stuff that made me think she had like a mold problem or something. I took the place because you know, what the hell. And then she’d owe me one and it’s good to get owed one by somebody who dates guys like Andy McCluskey. And she’d owe me a big one too. I mean, I saved her a ton of money. You try paying rent around here. So like I was saying, we got lunch and she gave me the keys and told me she was heading to somewhere that same day with a name like Copa de Sangre or something. I mean, she talks so fast. She said she’d left some furniture. So I went back to work and figured I’d check the place out afterwards. And I did. I was looking for the mold but I found Paul. Funny.
—- I didn’t know about Paul when I got the keys from her. I went up to the second floor, opened the door, and saw a bunch of bare floors and a wall with a framed print of some flowers and a man on the couch. He smiled and waved like he was supposed to be there and I screamed. I mean no joke screamed.
—- “What are you doing in my apartment?” I said.
—- He looked at me very funny.
—- “This isn’t your apartment,” he said.
—- “I’ve got the keys.”
—- “Yeah, but you’re not Stephanie.”
—- “Well, who the fuck are you?”
—- He said he was Paul. And he said he was the in-unit boyfriend for the place. And I asked him, “the what?”
—- “The in-unit boyfriend,” he said.
—- I asked if I could make a phone-call, and he said sure, and so I stepped out and called Stephanie and got her fucking voicemail. I mean. Come on.
—- I texted her like four times. She was probably on the plane. I called McCluskey, the hot-shit lawyer to the stars she’d dated off-and-on for a while. He said a pretty grouchy hello, so I made it quick and asked if he knew who the fuck Paul was, and he said, “The in-unit boyfriend?” like this was just a thing that happened to people. And I said yeah, and he said, “He’s the in-unit boyfriend.”
—- “Well, fuck,” I said, “what’s that?”
—- “Look, dude, I’m pretty busy right now,” he said. “I thought it was just some guy she had on the side.”
—- “You knew about this?”
—- “Yeah.”
—- “And you were cool about it?”
—- “Yeah. I knew she was coming home to me.”
But he told me that she told him that Paul was in the lease somewhere, one of the clauses about maintenance, and that a copy should still be somewhere in the place, and anyways, he had to go, let’s get a drink soon maybe? And yeah, I said, maybe soon, just to get him to shut up, and we hung up.
—- I took a breath and went back in. Paul was still there. He smiled. It was a nice smile. I couldn’t be mad at it. I asked him what the deal was and he told me he was the in-unit boyfriend.
—- “No, like what’s the deal with you?” I said.
—- “I like to paint,” he said. “I guess I like old jazz, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller and that kind of stuff. But I’m mostly just here for you.”
—- “And if I want you to go?”
—- “Sure, I’ll go.”
—- He stayed smiling the whole time. Like a Mormon missionary.
—- “If I ask you to make me dinner?”
—- “I’m not a great cook, but I’ll try!”
—- “Do you fuck?”
—- “Yeah.”
—- “Alright,” I said. “I guess I can work with that.”
—- So that night he made pasta and it was bad but, like, okay bad, you know? Stephanie called back while we were eating on the couch. Always something with her.
—- She said hey out of breath, and there was some very loud music. I asked her what the deal with Paul was, and she said she couldn’t hear me, and she’d call me back. And then she hung up.
—- I asked Paul if Stephanie had liked him.
—- “That’s a little personal,” he said.
—- “Yeah, but you’re here for me.”
—- “That doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.”
—- And what the fuck good did that do me?
—- “I’m not a robot,” he said. “I’m just your boyfriend.”
—- “So, I mean, what does boyfriend mean in this context?” I said. “Like…”
—- I couldn’t pull together what I wanted to say.
—- “It means whatever you need it to mean right now.”
—- “No obligations.”
—- “If you don’t want them.”
—- “Obligations?”
—- “If you want them.”
—- “And your feelings.”
—- The smile that always was.
—- “Don’t matter as much.”
—- “But you can’t talk about Steph.”
—- “My feelings about some things don’t matter.”

—- So I went to work the next day and Carissa was there, which was kind of funny because I hadn’t seen her on the schedule, and I asked her if she had ever heard of something like Paul and she put the tray of glasses she was carrying down and said she’d have to think about it. I caught her later in the shift looking over at me and talking to Anders and they both were kind of laughing like they were confused. But to be honest, so was I.
—- And so I started asking customers, or at least the ones I knew well enough to ask. I even asked Tom, who was fucking weird to the girls around here. And they all said they hadn’t heard of it. I went out to smoke and texted Stephanie.

hey
can you please tell me what the fix is up with paul
fuck
like whats going on
with him

—- And I waited around for a response out behind the dumpster in the autumn air. It was nice out back there. Quiet. Away from customers, I could think. So that’s what I did.
—- In the cool outside, the weird shit with Paul didn’t seem to matter as much as the cheaper rent and the walk to work and the rest of the reasons to keep the place, and I could keep him around in case I got bored.
—- McCluskey texted me that night, of all things.

Drinks? Like we said?
sure
When do you get off?
you mean work?
To start off 😈

—- (I mean, Jesus Christ.)

midnight
probably
Can I pick you up?
sure

—- So my shift ended and there was McCluskey in his fucking black sedan because he couldn’t be normal and drive a sports car like every guy with big money, he had to drive an Escalade or whatever it was, idling with his blinkers on and just fucking the traffic. I mean, he was getting honked at, he was getting yelled out. He opened the door for me and I got in.
—- “You look nice,” he said.
—- “Thanks,” I said. “Work makes me.”
—- “Good for them.”
—- We drove. Man, his car is comfy. I say is because he probably still has it, or something newer.
 “So how’s the Paul thing going?” he said.
—- “Fine, I guess.”
—- “Still weird.”
—- “Yeah.”
—- “You want my advice?”
—- I looked out the window at the palm trees.
—- “No.”
—- “Just use him for sex.”
—- “Thanks, Andy.”’
—- “No, I’m serious. Where do you want to go?”
—- “The Old Mill?”
—- He flicked on his blinkers and made the turn on the beachside road that would take us to The Old Mill.
—- We talked a little on the way there. He was representing an actress you’d know in her divorce proceedings. She was going to clean the guy out, he said. Take the shirt from him and whip him with it, he said.
—- “Does he deserve that?” I asked.
—- “Nah, he’s cool” he said. “I just feel like winning big on this one.”
—- He asked if I was seeing anybody. I told him somebody, which was a lie, but he was starting to annoy me. He asked who. I said nobody he’d know. He asked if we were exclusive. I said no.
—- “You want my advice?” he said.
—- “No.”
—- “You should keep it that way. Saves a lot of hassle.”
—- Then he put his hand on my knee and I thought about it and I let him keep it there. Saved a lot of hassle.
—- We went back to my place after we had a few drinks at the Old Mill and I woke up to him snoring. I got up and went to the living room in my underwear and there was Paul drinking coffee and writing in a little notebook. He looked up.
—- “Fun night?” he said.
—- “Yeah.”
—- “Cool. You want coffee?”
—- “Yeah. Thanks.”
—- When Paul saw McCluskey, he nodded and said, “Hi, Andrew. Been a while.”
—- “Hey, Paul. Long time no see.”
—- “How’s the law firm?”
—- “Good. How’s the apartment?”
—- “Same as ever.”
—- The morning sun was coming in through the little window over the kitchen sink.
—- “I gotta go,” said McCluskey. He walked over and gave me a little peck, and then he walked out.
—- “Andy,” Paul said. “Huh.”
—- “Do you have an issue with that?”
—- “No,” he said. He went back to writing in his little notebook. “I just think you could do better.”

—- Paul and I slept together after a few weeks. It was just time.
—- He was good.

—- And after a while, I don’t know, I guess I started to like him. It was good to have him around. I’d just never been, like, good, I guess? At keeping stable relationships. My therapist (I didn’t have a therapist then but now I do) says I push people away so that I can’t let them hurt me.
—- So I fired her.
—- No, I’m kidding. But I mean, maybe she’s right. I was never any good at letting guys stick around. I almost let myself fall in love with this one guy in college, but he was moving a little too quickly, you know, flowers and stuff, and that was weird. But I don’t know. Paul was just there, and what was I supposed to do about it? I’d emailed the management company about him, and they said that he was part of the unit, and under no circumstances was I allowed to “substantially alter, change, or modify the furnishing of the unit without prior written consent from Company,” and that, “in case of substantial defect or failure in any unit furnishing, the Company may send representatives to alter, repair, or replace said furnishing without consent of Tenant.” And it was a sublease and I didn’t want to get into a hassle about paperwork when I was legally supposed to be somebody else, so there Paul was and there I was and there we were. And I guess I started to like him, and what else can I say, man? What else has there ever been?

—- And at some point I guess we slid from being weird to being comfortable. Or, okay, comfortable isn’t the word, maybe, right? But like, I don’t know. It felt less strange, the whole thing. He was just a roommate who didn’t take up too much space. He liked birds and could tell me their names when we saw them. I thought they were called blue jays but it turns out they’re scrub jays, and one night when we went for a walk together out in a big wild open place near the beach he heard an owl somewhere and said it was a screech owl. Which, I mean, be real. Just from the hooting? But he was good at this stuff. So maybe it was a screech owl. And I get, I still get, how Steph could do it. Because Paul was nice. And good. And uncomplicated. We would do dinner every Friday, sitting on the couch with very cold beers or putting on our nicest, my tallest heels, his sharpest jacket, and he would smile at me and he’d say, “This is fun, ain’t it?” and yeah, man, it was fun. It was real fucking fun.

—- McCluskey texted me one day during that period when we were riding high and asked if I wanted to get lunch. I had work that night but sure. What the hell. So he took me to The Bench, which was the place where all the lawyers went, and I asked him how the divorce was going and he looked at me like I was a little crazy and asked if I read the news, and to be honest, I really didn’t and, to be even more honest, I still don’t. But apparently it made the papers. I don’t think I can say her name, legally, but it was a big payday. Which might be why he was buying me thirty-dollar bucatini.
—- “So how’s Steph?” he said.
—- “I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t heard from her.”
—- “How’s Paul? You guys still fucking?”
—- “He’s good,” I said.
—- “You ever wonder what that guy does when you’re not around?”
—- “No.”
—- “You think he just stares at the walls? You think that’s what he’s doing?”
—- “I think he’s got hobbies.”
—- “Name one.”
—- I twirled some bucatini on my fork and watched it slither off onto the plate. A little sauce splashed on the table.
—- “He’s into birds,” I said.
—- “He go bird watching?”
—- “Probably.”
—- “You never asked?”
—- “It never comes up. He likes jazz.”
—- “You ever go record shopping with him?”
—- “He likes to paint.”
—- “You ever see him do it?”
—-He took a bite of his sandwich.
—- “I’m just saying,” he said. He spewed a few bits. “You should be thinking about this stuff.”
—- “Is this why we’re at lunch, Andy? So you, of all people, can give me advice about a relationship?”
—- “No,” he said. He grabbed some fries. “We’re at lunch so I can brag about how much money I’m about to make. You’re not gonna believe it.”

(to be continued in Dunce Codex)

 

 

Thank you to everyone who sent their work over for consideration. This would not be possible without you. Thank you, Amy, Benjamin, Dennis, Jack and Jac, for all your support and for your contributions to the magazine. And to David McDevitt and Mady Barudin I am forever indebted—David for providing the cover art to the magazine and Mady for formatting its pages. Both of you put up with my many neverminds and last-minute changes, and I am grateful.
—The Editor

If you would like to obtain a copy of Dunce Codex, please visit @duncecodex on Instagram. There you will find a link to purchase. If you live outside the US and would like to order a copy, please send a DM, or email [email protected].

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. This weekend the blog has the unusually great pleasure of rolling out its red carpet function to help the world greet the new, amazing two volume lit journal/anthology Dunce Codex edited by the vibrant young poet and fiction writer Rooben. It’s a rich thing that includes new works by known superstars (Eileen Myles, Thomas Moore, Johannes Göransson, Jack Skelley, yours truly, and many others) and well as a wealth new and upcoming writers and artists. Plus, it’s named after a Guided by Voices song, so … Strong encouragement to both peruse the introductory display and get your hands on a copy. Thank you, Roo, for thinking of us. ** Misanthrope, Shit’s going around. The metro here is increasingly full of pale faced snifflers. Hope you got paid, jesus. And that your weekend pays way off. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Plus, as far as I could tell, you couldn’t eat the walls or ceiling or much of anything. An edible hotel should either be like an oversized gingerbread house or call itself a check-in buffet or something. Love should always be surprising and familiar, no? Mr. Cohen. Your version of love has such good taste. Mine is a bit too eclectic maybe. Touch me won’t you touch me now, So frozen I can’t love, When I was born my mama cried, And picked me up with gloves, G. ** Nicholas., Gosh, thanks! Too bad I couldn’t have actually popped into your pad to have a biting confab, but you probably weren’t even born at the time. I actually don’t know very much about Pamela Anderson. I like that’s she has stopped wearing make-up and that she surprised everyone recently by revealing that she’s a film buff with very good taste. But other than that and that she was or still is married to Tommy Lee, I never paid much attention to her. Dinner was some faux meat products and instant mashed potatoes wrapped in two tortillas. My favorite number is either 3 or 5, I can’t decide. You got one? ** James Bennett, Hi! Oh, thank you. I just meant that tech/ internet/ social media is just a thing in flux and that it’s not a solid, given thing, so it’s altering as we speak which causes me to feel like I should reserve judgement on its effect since its effect is inherently in-process. Maybe sort of the way people generalize when speaking about teenagers as though they’re some kind of locked down, specific species rather than humans in various stages of cross-fading from the longer term categories of childhood to adulthood or something. So I think it ultimately comes down to the basic thing of whether one is an optimist or some version of the opposite? I don’t know, just thinking aloud. Close Up is great. I hosted a curious event there a few years ago where they ask people to host/introduce a night of films without knowing telling them what the films are going to be. Very interesting programming, that place. I’m very happy you like ‘Black Sunlight’. It’s such an extremely alive novel. Really something. Gray and moist here too, getting very old. Have a fine weekend. Anything especially special happen? ** _Black_Acrylic, Phew, I was hoping so. I’ll look for ‘I Start Counting’. I love Jenny Agutter. I should do a Day about her. ** Steeqhen, Six hours of sleep, I’d be a dead head and not in the Grateful Dead fan way. Nice, the radio hosting. I was a dj at my university’s radio station during my brief university stint, and, god, that was fun. So you dressed up as a vampire last night? Sounds expensive. Oh, just lie and say I said that drug thing to you when we were having coffee. Good weekend! ** Tyler Ookami, His films can be fun intermittently but they are never amazing, if you ask me. Oh, wow, about your great uncle being in ‘The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombie’. I actually kind of love that movie. And he dated Liz Renay, wow. Nice lineage you have there, obviously. ** James, Poe distaste, interesting. I think he’s sort of like Stephen King: really good ideas but not such a hot writer. And yet ‘Scream, Pretty Peggy’ is arguably his most fun movie. What a world. Luckily for you the mere name James is not very revealing. On the other hand, if you talk like you write and your dad has peeked in here, you’re probably busted. Tea then. Surely you like tea being a Brit and all of that. ‘Best of Jill Hives’ is easily in my top ten GbV songs. Thanks for clearing that up about cockles. How complicated. And now you reveal tea as your drug of choice, so ignore that sentence. I’ll expect to see you back here all bright eyed and freshly shaven on Monday. ** Steve, Ugh, hang in there this weekend. Everyone, For Crooked Marquee, Steve reviewed Zeinabu Irene Davis’ 1999 film COMPENSATION here. I’ll check my email. Your weekend sounds most promising. Mine? Zac and I have to put together a press kit for ‘RT’. Palais de Tokyo just opened a big retrospective of the amazing post-graffiti artist Rammellzee, and I’m very excited to see that, probably today. And other stuff presumably. ** HaRpEr, So true. There are increasing numbers of under the weather people here, if that’s anything to go by. I tend to think of myself as a head on a moving platform, and, yeah, when the platform is stuck in place, there’s a bright side. Hm, good question. I don’t know. It seems like circumstance has a lot to do with it? I was extremely creative from the moment I could talk and make my hands function properly, and I was all over the place re: how that played out in physical terms, but I always wrote even when I was shifting around forms-wise, so I guess that means words were where my creativity — or maybe I mean talent? — was situated. But why that is? I don’t know. Does that make any sense? ** Justin D, Hey. Thank you. Yeah, watching ‘PGL’ again, I was really happy how we managed to make the world so still and have the majority of what was happening occur in the complicated ways they spoke to each other. ‘The Color of Pomegranates’ is one of my favourite films, although I haven’t seen it in a long time. What did you think of it? Happiest weekend possible for you. ** jay, Hi. Yeah, ‘De Sade’ is kind of a wet blanket. Oh, no, sad to think of you calling for my death. Or, well interesting too. More interesting than sad, I guess. I even feel guilty when I kill mosquitoes, although I do run around murdering them in a rampage in the summer. But I feel bad about it. I have a guilty pleasure thing about the ‘Final Destination’ movies, so yeah. Although in that case I don’t think I actually feel any guilt at all. Nah, a friend leant me a scarf, and it was kind of skimpy, but it managed to keep me alive for the duration. What are you doing this weekend? I’m imagining a plethora of highly mood enhancing things. ** Joe, Nothing is as horrifying as mainstream politics at the moment. I’ll try to find ‘Border Districts’ then. It sounds ripe for me from what you say. Thank you, pal. Onwards and upwards, eh? ** Okay. Do yourselves and ‘Dunce Codex’ the favor of conjoining your faculties with its outlay until further notice, thank you. See you on Monday.

* (restored/expanded)

 

‘Gordon Hessler passed away in his sleep January 19, 2014 at the age of 83. An underrated horror director, Hessler cut his teeth on the Hitchcock Presents TV show then helmed several genuinely creepy and atmospheric British films. He worked with Vincent Price three times, all with scripts by Christopher Wicking; SCREAM & SCREAM AGAIN (1970) was an outrageous sci-fi/horror hybrid that presented a berserk view of swinging 60′s London (and also starred Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee). CRY OF THE BANSHEE (1970) was gritty and mean-spirited featuring Price as a sadistic monarch with an intense hatred of witchcraft and a sardonic sense of macabre. THE OBLONG BOX (1969 – co-starring Chris Lee) was a dark and moody tale of voodoo, body snatching, medical experiments, brotherly betrayal, and being buried alive.

‘Hessler’s MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE was like a Vincent Price movie without Price (it starred Herbert Lom and Jason Robards). It mixed Poe with Phantom of the Opera and was an interesting take on Paris’ historic Grand Guignol theater. One of his last films, GIRL IN A SWING (1988) was an effective, low-key ghost story worth seeking out. Hessler directed Ray Harryhausen’s GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD in 1973, a film that’s always lived in the shadow of 7th VOYAGE as an inferior sequel but has aged well. It’s a terrific fantasy film worthy of big screen reassessment (and was recently released on Blu-ray by Twilight Time). No one could mistake his KISS MEETS THE PHANTOM OF THE PARK for a good movie, but the 1978 TV movie plays like a live-action Scooby-Doo episode and has a huge cult following. He also directed two martial arts films in the late ‘80s starring Sho Kusugi, the best known actor/martial artist during the 1980s ninja cinema craze: PRAY FOR DEATH (1985), and RAGE OF HONOR (1987).’ — collaged

 

___
Stills

 

_____
Further

Gordon Hessler @ IMDb
‘KISS Co-founders Simmons and Stanley Remember Gordon Hessler’
Gordon Hessler @ MGM Channel
Lumière ! Réalisateurs : Gordon Hessler
Gordon Hessler: An Alan Smithee Podcast
DVD Savant Double Feature: Gordon Hessler
‘And You Call Yourself a Scientist!’
Shock Cinema Issue #38
‘Alfred Hitchcock Presents’: The Quality of Humor
SATANIC PANDEMONIUM: THE OBLONG BOX

 

____
Extra

Gordon Hessler discusses the noble art of horror.

 

_______
Interview
from DVD Drive-In

 

What was your relationship like with AIP?

Gordon Hessler: I always got along well with Deke Heyward, the head of DIP. He was very politically adept at handling things at AIP. He would protect you from [Sam] Arkoff and [James] Nicholson because they’d come into town and stay at the Savoy Hotel, and then they’d go in to discuss the picture, or they would see the finished product and make their suggestions.

Obviously they were happy with you, as you continued to work with them.

GH: Well, THE OBLONG BOX was very successful for them. They were in tremendous trouble with DE SADE. They didn’t get along with Cy Endfield and all sorts of other problems existed. It was the greatest piece of luck that I was fired from it. When I did THE OBLONG BOX, they left me alone, there was nobody there. The day I started, Nicholson came on the set and said, “Good luck.” That’s it, and he was off. That film was made for £70,000, which is about $250,000. At Shepperton Studios, you could shoot from 8 AM until about 4 PM because of the union. If you wanted to do overtime, you’d have to let them know by lunchtime that you were going to take it one more hour. And only if all the union leaders agreed would they go along with it. It was a very tough assignment to shoot and get finished. Actually, when we were finishing it, I had three or four more days left. They [AIP] said, “Look, we like what you’re doing, take an extra week. Can’t you make this bigger?” This never happened to me before, so I was happy with the situation and I took an extra week at the studios and built up certain sequences. I can’t remember which, but whatever we were shooting, we elaborated on it. And the film did very well for them.

How did you get along with Vincent Price?

GH: Oh, marvelous, he was a marvelous man, highly intelligent. I remember at Shepperton Studios, during THE OBLONG BOX, we had an African prince who was the head of this tribe. So we put them in the film for this dance sequence. I asked Vincent if he wouldn’t mind having lunch with this African prince, or king, or whatever he was. You know, most actors always talk about themselves; Vincent was completely the opposite. He talked to him about African art, and all about the various art he knew about and so on. I was just stunned at the conversation and his knowledge. What a unique man.

I’m sure you’re aware that your director’s cut of MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE has been restored and remastered by MGM and recently aired on U.S. cable TV.

GH: I’m amazed that MGM had the instinct to do this version of it after so many years. I was appalled when I originally saw the theatrically released version. I wrote a five-page letter to Arkoff. I knew it was his picture and he could do what he wanted with it, but I asked him to do certain things so it would at least make more sense. But by that time, it was already out and released. There’s another film that I did–which I feel very strongly about–called GIRL ON A SWING that was terribly mauled. It’s awful what Miramax did. They spliced ten or 15 minutes out of it, and it didn’t make any sense. We all wanted to take our name off of that picture. In my contract, they had to give me a 35mm print of the original version–it’s the only one in existence. But as far as MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE, it seems that someone at MGM is doing some researching or something, releasing my cut of the film. This cable TV version–which I haven’t yet seen–is apparently the original. I remember the flashbacks were originally never tinted, but AIP tinted them for the theatrical release. The whole idea was not to tint them so that you wouldn’t know when you’re more or less in a dream sequence or just being puzzled by it. The whole trick in that was instead of it being a flashback, this would be a flash-forward, which people really hadn’t done before at that time. It was a premonition of what was going to happen. When it’s tinted, it’s just so obvious. Audiences picked up on it immediately.

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is an extraordinary film, very different from the typical Poe/Price cycle. Was AIP happy with it?

GH: Well, they didn’t know what the film was about and were always questioning what I was doing. The editor kept assuring them that everything was fine, but they didn’t quite know what they had as a picture. I’m sure they were a little queasy when that film came out because Arkoff had to try and sell it. We knew we had a good film. It was different. It was a science fiction film really, but the thing is, although the pulp book was very badly written, once Chris Wicking had put the nucleus of that idea into it, it elevated the whole picture and made it much more interesting. But all these pictures were made so quickly with so little money, I think we shot that in three or four weeks. But we had fun making it.

You had Christopher Lee in small parts in THE OBLONG BOX and SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN. How did you get along with him?

GH: I got on very well with Christopher Lee. He became even more talented as he moved on in his career. I was quite surprised at how good he was in certain movies. When you’re shooting, you’re so busy and you never really get to know the actors very well. You meet them and they get a sense of what you want, and then you don’t see them again because they’re off doing another picture. I think that the thing with a horror picture is that you have to convince your actors to believe in what they’re doing. You really have to get embellished in it and enjoy it.

You also worked with Peter Cushing in SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN.

GH: I really didn’t get to know him because he was put into the picture. That was Deke Heyward’s idea. Deke would try to find some well known actor to dress up the picture–who at least Americans would be familiar with–which was a good idea. He did the same thing with Lilli Palmer in MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE. When I was doing the AIP pictures, I tried to keep a stable of actors and give them different roles. They were so wonderful, and they had to work for practically nothing. Since I was producing and directing, I had to go to the actors and tell them that I could only offer them so much, and that they could take it or leave it. It’s not that I was in a situation to bargain with them. I just didn’t have it in the budget. When you only have £70,000 and you’re working in a large studio, everybody else got screwed–these actors. Hopefully they get some residuals of some kind, I’m not sure.

 

__________________
The Lost Son of Batman

‘The financial position of DC Comics in the early 70’s was precarious. A number of publishing moves initiated by publisher Carmine Infantino had failed to see a substantial return, coupled with a number of their creators either retiring or crossing over to work at Marvel, lead to new owners Warner Bros-Seven Arts selling off the movie rights to their characters to the highest bidder to raise capital. While ABC television picked up the option on Wonder Woman, and the Salkind family snapped up Superman, the rights to Batman were sold to Canadian producer, George H. Brown in 1972. Brown himself would be declared bankrupt the following year with the rights being brought up by the Hong Kong based Shaw Brothers, whose primary output was kung-fu pictures, yet who had just signed a joint-production deal with British based Hammer films. The resultant Batman film produced is probably one of the strangest and most schizophrenic films ever produced – it is certainly one of the cheapest with a reported budget of £300,000.

‘John Phillip Law was cast as Batman but he had to withdraw due to sickness, leading to the casting of David Chiang. The Shaw Brothers answer to Bruce Lee, Chiang would play Bruce Wayne’s son, who assumes the mantle of Batman after the death of his father, now played by Stuart Whitman. Anton Differing appeared briefly as a very Germanic Alfred, his performance hampered by a lengthy bout of food poisoning. As the non-comic book villain Lady Ice, Julie Ege looks stunning but her line readings were so weak she had to be re-voiced by Joanne Lumley. Chiang’s usual sparring partner Ti Lung appears as Ege’s bodyguard, Dragon Fist and the climatic duel between him and Chiang is the film’s one real highlight.

‘Original director Gordon Hessler was fired after a month due to repeated clashes with the screenwriter and producer Don Houghton, leading to Hammer’s Chief Executive Michael Carreras having to complete the picture himself. Issues with the Shaw Brothers Hong Kong studios meant that much of the film was recorded without sound leading to a very costly series of post-production work which gobbled up much of the film’s already meagre budget. Chiang looks absurd in the Batman costume, something which Carreras/Hessler seem to admit to given that Chiang only wears it twice in the whole film. The tiny resources granted to Hammer means that Hong Kong Harbour, doubling as Gotham City, only manages to reinforce the fact that the budget is almost non-existent. When shooting finally drew to an end, Carreras realised that they only had just over 60 minutes of usable footage. The Shaw Brothers managed to pad out the running time by splicing in unused scenes from earlier Chiang/Lung films, the majority of it from 1971’s Duel of Fists. Carreras’ hope that Hammer’s own team in the UK would handle the special effects were for nothing,with the Shaw’s handing it over to a subsidiary of Toei. “It looked one of those bloody cheap Godzilla films by the time they got through with it! The fire at the docks at the climax? I could’ve spit on that burning model and put the fire out!”, Carreras would later say.

‘The final film limped out to British cinemas in November 1975 as the bottom half of a double bill with Man About the House. After only managing to take a paltry £1,014 in its first month, Bernard Delfont pulled the film from his ABC cinema chain. In the Far East, the Shaw’s assembled a more action-orientated edit, released under the title The Legend of the Lost Son of The Batman which did much better. Unfortunately, due to a carefully worded contract, Hammer Films did not see a cent of that revenue – all box office receipts for that region went straight to the Shaw Brothers. DC were mortified when confronted with the completed picture and instigated a major lawsuit to reclaim the rights from the Shaw Brothers, finally buying their own property back for a rumoured $2 million. The film would not be released in the US until 1979 when Roger Corman’s New World Pictures picked up the film as part of a package buy-out. Corman re-cut the film, bookending it with scenes shot by Allan Arkush featuring Dick Miller as “Matches” Malone. Corman has stated that the edit was an attempt to catch some of the excitement following the success of Star Wars. It failed to do so and either Corman’s version or the original are hardly seen at all today. Bootleg DVDs have been known to sell for up £70 to £80 on the comic convention circuit.’ — Warning: Contains Traces of Bowie

 

______________________
16 of Gordon Hessler’s 46 films

_____________
Catacombs (1965)
‘Imagine calling a movie Catacombs, based on the tiniest of plot points. A rich woman who uses meditation to deal with pain is visited by her niece who returns from Paris. The woman can be a handful and one of her employees suggests to her husband that he kill her freeing them both. When an affair starts between the husband and the niece murder becomes a real possibility. However some people won’t stay dead.’ — Letterboxd

Trailer

 

________________
The Oblong Box (1969)
‘This troubled production from American International Pictures initially began life as the next project for young British filmmaker Michael Reeves. He had clearly impressed his backers with the strength of his third film Witchfinder General (1968). The death of Reeves during the pre-production of The Oblong Box was a major blow, not only to the film, but to British filmmaking in general. With the death of Reeves any ambition the film might have had began to dwindle and this was signposted by the arrival of the undistinguished Gordon Hessler as his directorial replacement. Hessler was a capable director, but one who rarely achieved any kind of inspiration – and this derivative and clichéd piece of gothic horror was badly in need of inspiration.’ — Son of Celluloid

Trailer

the entire film

 

__________
De Sade (1969)
‘I was asked to produce a film, DE SADE, for AIP while I was in Los Angeles that was taking place in Munich, Germany. I flew into London and met the writer, and the director was supposed to be there, but he never showed up. He didn’t come to the meeting; he was sick or something like that. Having met the writer, I flew to Munich to set up the film about eight weeks before they were going to start shooting. I was there preparing the production and then I was told that the original director was not going to make the picture. So we waited for a while, and finally the American director who did ZULU, Cy Endfield, came in to do it. This was a big picture for AIP, which usually made very cheap pictures, and I was an outsider. I was not an employee, just a freelance director. My position got very shaky there, even though I was very friendly with everybody. I was actually fired from the job because the local people employed by AIP wanted to produce the picture rather than have an outsider like me.’ — Gordon Hessler

Excerpt

Excerpt

 

___________________
Scream and Scream Again (1970)
‘With its daft one-size-fits-all title and unassailable front-line of Cushing, Lee and Price, one could easily be forgiven for writing off Scream and Scream Again as another entry in the ill-fated cycle of ‘old boys club’ horror movies that began to take off as the box office for old-fashioned horror flicks started to diminish through the ‘70s. All bets are off however the second one sits down to actually watch Scream and Scream Again. By some strange quirk of fate, this modest Amicus/AIP co-production turns out to be one of the most beserk, imaginative and unconventional British horror movies ever made – a real kick in the teeth for anyone who bought a ticket expecting to see Vince and the gang rattling around dark old house for eighty minutes. That’s not to say it’s actually all that great, but … ‘ — Breakfast in the Ruins

Trailer

Excerpt

 

__________________
Cry of the Banshee (1970)
‘Within Cry of the Banshee can be found the groundings of what most people know as folk horror. The witchcraft elements will of course be attributed to Reeves’ film but there are more aspects in Cry of the Banshee that would crop up in later films. The worship aspects and group gestalts would be put to more dramatic and disturbing effects in Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971); a film that similarly embraces the reality of the supernatural to explain away its evils. However the purely humanistic evils found in Banshee can be seen in the sub-genre’s poster boy; The Wicker Man (1973). There’s little visually to tie in but there’s no doubt that Cry of the Banshee can be seen to be a step closer to the ultimate in folk horror madness. Some of the performances may be colourful but the film’s horror is still strong. However the better moments come from the human evils rather than the supernatural ones. The banshee creature bares little on scenes of torture and burning which have a documentary shake to them and are just as effective as Reeves’ prolonged agonies. Coupled with some Hammer like pulp and Price’s usual villainy, a film is left that is enjoyable, flawed and surprisingly influential.’ — Celluloid Wicker Man

Trailer

Watch the film here

 

_____________________
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)
‘Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1971 American horror film directed by Gordon Hessler, starring Jason Robards and Herbert Lom. It is ostensibly an adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, although it departs from the story in several significant aspects, at times more resembling Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera. In an interview on the film’s DVD, Hessler said that he thought everyone already knew the ending of the story, so he felt it necessary to reinvent the plot. According to IMDB.com, the film was banned in Finland in 1972.’ — Wiki

Trailer

Excerpt

the entire film

 

_________
Medusa (1973)
‘A couple of empty champagne glasses lay between a pair of corpses, a man and a woman – their hands folded peacefully together in the prose of two lovers who’ve opted to end it all with suicide. This is the shocking scene that greets a group of Greek police officials who have just boarded a floating yacht in the opening minutes of Medusa, a 1973 curio from television director turned big screen auteur, Gordon Hessler. Clearly this film isn’t for everyone but if you love to see actors getting crazy and going over the top and generally having a great time, you should check it out.’ — CrankedOnCinema

Excerpt

the entire film

 

_______________
Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973)
‘The main thing most people say about SCREAM PRETTY PEGGY is that all the surprise twists are absolutely no surprise at all. You’ll completely know the whole scoop about 10 minutes in and none of your guesses as to what happens and who is responsible will be wrong. This film was directed for television by Gordon Hessler who, it has to be said, isn’t the greatest director in the world. But a drunken Bette Davis falling and breaking her leg and hiding bottles of booze behind books in the library is priceless!’ — Cerpts

Trailer

Watch the film here

 

_______________
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974)
‘Following manuscript-styled opening credits, an incantation of Baudelaire’s albatross: A swooping creature drops a fragmented amulet on the vessel’s deck, Sinbad (John Philip Hall) decides to hang on to it after a faceless odalisque with painted eyes on her palms comes as a vision. Another piece of the tablet belongs to the noble Vizier (Douglas Wilmer), who hides a charred visage behind a gold-plated Hellenistic mask; together they reveal a navigation chart, the answer to its riddle is at a mystical island populated by natives who paint themselves jade-green and worship Ray Harryhausen behemoths. The climactic brawl between a centaur and a griffin has to be some kind of stop-animation benchmark, and a few wide-eyed words are all it takes for the Amazonian figurehead at the ship’s prow to come to vengeful life. Still, Harryhausen’s most touching work is done in the quiet, beguiling scene in which the villainous wizard (Tom Baker) patiently breathes life into a tiny gargoyle, a concise ode to the divine qualities of the craftsman’s art.’ — cinepassion.org

Trailer

Excerpt

the entire film

 

___________
Hitchhike! (1974)
‘If I told you this was a miserable, tedious, slog of a constipated TV Movie lacking suspense, bloated with cliches and propelled by confused and vacuous acting, well I would still be giving this bore too much credit. Michael Brandon is a semi-sentient log that walks among us. Cloris Leachman is Alice Cooper as Doris Day. Cameron Mitchell is Henry Darrow and Henry Darrow is Cameron Mitchell. I feel as if I survived a mugging.’ — bozodeathgod

the entire film

 

______________
Skyway To Death (1974)
‘The passengers in an aerial tramway are trapped when the tramway breaks down 8,500 feet in the air. I liked everything in this movie, but I disliked the screenplay and tone.’ — thebiggestpizza

Watch the film here

 

_____________________
KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park (1978)
‘A crude opening montage sees the members of Kiss super-imposed on top of night-time fairground footage. Inexplicably, Peter Criss is seen miming the drums on a roulette wheel. Drink it in, Kiss Army recruits, as this is the last glimpse of your commanding officers you’ll be getting for quite a while. Director Gordon Hessler (whose horror credits include Scream and Scream Again and Cry of the Banshee for AIP, as well as taking over The Oblong Box after the death of Michael Reeves), clearly has other things on his mind. Like FUN, primarily. Beautiful, sun-dappled, 1978 suburban American amusement park fun, to be precise. Thankfully I’m a bit too young and located on the wrong side of the world to be fully smitten by this full-scale nostalgia landslide, but anyone currently in about the 35-45 age bracket and raised somewhere in the Southern half of the USA should probably prepare themselves for paralysing wistfulness and bouts of uncontrollable sobbing, as gentle, smiling Dazed & Confused teens fade in and out of focus, enjoying a summer’s day out in their local parentally-approved leisure complex.’ — Breakfast in the Ruins

Opening credits

Watch the film here

 

_________________
Evil Stalks This House (1981)
‘This low-budget feature is actually comprised of re-edited installments from a syndicated television serial. Jack Palance stars as a self-serving, abusive boor who becomes stranded — along with his two hapless children — by a thunderstorm, forcing them to take shelter in an isolated country estate owned by a group of mysterious and wealthy old dowagers. Seeing a golden opportunity, Palance soon turns to plundering their estate, but his plans collide horribly with the secret activities of a Satanic snake-cult who carry out ritual sacrifices in the attic. Guess who’s next in line? Given the cheap-looking confines of the shot-on-video production, director Gordon Hessler manages to generate some creepy atmosphere, and Palance chews acres of scenery as the diabolical daddy, whose tyrannical behavior makes his eventual fate quite satisfying.’ — Cavett Binion, Rovi

the entire film

 

______________
Pray for Death (1985)
‘Pray For Death is essentially a carbon copy of Revenge of the Ninja. In both films Kosugi plays a Japanese businessman who relocates his family to America for the sake of his job, but once there runs afoul of gangsters. In both movies his respective wives are killed, AND in both films Kosugi’s two sons play the roles of his onscreen kids, which end up surviving the bloody carnage father and gangster doll out among each other in both movies. Pray For Death is notable for two things, it’s Kosugi’s last role in a movie where he plays a ninja, and it’s notorious for being his most violent and sadistic. Kosugi find’s himself going head to head wtih James Booth, who plays a gangster psychopath that enjoys beating old men to death, torturing Kosugi in front of his kid, and raping and killing Kosugi’s wife towards the end.’ — You Won Cannes

Trailer

the entire film

 

________________
Wheels of Terror (1987)
‘Wheels of Terror is adapted from a novel from Sven Hassle; who was a former Nazi Soldier and thus a bit of a questionable and slightly controversial figure himself. Regardless of his background, The Misfit Brigade definitely isn’t pro-Nazi and actually quite blunt and uncompromising in the expression of its political opinions. The protagonists in this movie are anti everything and that’s probably why this is such a good and plausible film. And by plausible I do not necessarily mean the depicted events in the film, but the characterizations of the rejected SS-soldiers and deserters. Director Gordon Hessler – known from the early 70’s Vincent Price horror movies The Oblong Box and Cry of the Banshee – does an admirable job as well and he could rely on a fantastically devoted cast, including Bruce Davison as the uncrowned leader of the bunch, David Patrick Kelly as the eloquent and provocative Legionnaire and Jay O. Sanders as the big & dumb kamikaze freak Tiny. David Carradine is sublimely nefarious as the power-hungry Colonel Von Weisshägen; complete with his glasses for one eye only to make him look extra evil. Oliver Reed receives top billing but only makes a cameo appearance during the hectic and extremely cool climax. The role, however, is perfect for him and he gives his absolute everything in only five lines of dialog.’ — Coventry

Trailer

Excerpt

 

___________________
The Girl in the Swing (1989)
‘Gordon Hessler first made a name for himself as a producer of Alfred Hitchcock’s TV series in the 1960s, and later, as a director of several interesting (if not entirely satisfying) British horror films of the late ’60s and early ’70s. The Girl in a Swing is not a good movie, but it is so ambitious in its strangeness that it cannot routinely be dismissed. Among the many curious decisions connected with this European film is the choice of Meg Tilly, an American actress, for the leading role — a young German woman who speaks English with an almost-impenetrable accent. Twenty years ago, the great director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M) hailed Hessler’s Scream and Scream Again as one of the outstanding suspense films of the ’60s, largely because he was impressed with the political subtext of what was otherwise a stock, modern horror movie. Movie buffs have been waiting for Hessler to live up to Lang`s praise since. The Girl in a Swing brings him closer than anything else he has made. That probably isn’t enough to satisfy a mainstream audience, but it`s enough to warrant that the film not be totally ignored. Hessler has emerged from a long stretch of obscurity with The Girl in a Swing, a bizarre, almost hypnotically fascinating study of sexual obsession.’ — collaged

Trailer

the entire film

Siskel & Ebert review The Girl in a Swing

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, B. Haha, no prob. But ouch, and here’s hoping your nail is the tip of no iceberg. Let me know how it goes please. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I too like the edible hotel, but the food didn’t look particularly edible, or should I say pleasurably edible. Ah, love quotes the big boys! There are things that I can’t do, Even if I wanted to, But I can love you, That’s easy to do, G. ** Misanthrope, Good, good, health-wise. But now your mom, ugh. If someone made a cartoon character based on a virus, I wonder what it would look like. ** James, Thank you for helping Uday feel like a proud papa. Assuming he is. I speculate about that very Santa question in my novel ‘I Wished’. Available at all fine bookstores and online outlets. Yes, you don’t want your family members to be so charmed by one of my blog’s harmless posts that they bookmark the place. Happy to hear that here is on the widescreen again. Gayer boy is the quite the ambitious boy. I would recommend that you and he at least have an IRL coffee before tying the knot. Your GbV love is so warming the cockles of my heart, whatever cockles are. Phew, ‘Crash’ passed your rigorous test. It’s always morning when I read this/you. First with insufficient coffee and then once again once my brain has risen off its sickbed. ** James Bennett, Hi. Yes, what Foster-Wallace does is very particularly what he does. I personally really respond to the heavy anxiety and lavishly polished OCD of his writing. And I find it emotionally affecting. But it’s always what you’re hungry for. I don’t understand what you mean by ‘as revelation it feels dated’. Hm, I think I’m very much a kind of live and let live, curious observer of the shifts in people’s attention spans and pull towards the lightweight and trendy, and I’m never interested in making public comments about such things in my writing even if the writing is informed by my opinion or take. As I’ve said, I want my writing to be like the drug the reader is taking. It gives you a direction and set of parameters and then it becomes subject to what your entirety builds from it. Or something thereabouts. I agree that it’s changed the texture of collective life, but I guess I think of it as interim effect, so it’s blurry at its front end, and I’m interested in that part. But I only use my phone for calls, texts, and photos, period, so I’m not really a participant. Interesting Plato quote. I guess maybe I think things are more porous than that? I guess I don’t think of memory as being some kind of unpolluted entity? Don’t know. Very interesting thoughts and questions, and thank you a lot for that. ** Sypha, I’m pro-‘Moby Dick’. I haven’t read it since high school, but … I do highly recommend you either kill of your fear of flying or set aside enough time to take a ship over there because Japan is a serious must. ** Steve, Hi. First, … Everyone, Steve has written a think/knowledge piece for Trouser Press about the Japanese collective After Dinner, but it looks to about a lot more than that and very, very interesting so check it out here. I only glanced at it, but I’m happy to see you writing about Henry Cow and Rock in Opposition. I haven’t about the latter in ages. Right, about the TV argument. In France, some of the most daring French filmmakers (Godard, Akerman, Varda, et. al.) made excellent and seemingly uncompromised films and programs for French television in the 60s, 70s, 80s. ** Bill, There’s a doc about Dean Johnson. Huh, I didn’t know about that. Yes, very interested to see it. So nice that Joel Lane’s books are getting back into print. I knew him, and he would very surprised. ** HaRpEr, My friend Zac is French, but he speaks English with an unimpeachable American accent, and I always forget that it’s a totally affected voice. Great that film screening went so well, and, well, I’m not surprised, but still! And the reading too! What an awesome day you had! Even the delicious take down by that couple. Nice! ** Steeqhen, Nice about the confidence builder. And luck finishing the outfits piece although you clearly don’t need any. ** jay, I shudder to think what might have happened if Melville hadn’t beaten me to you, haha. Right, the pearl, that must be it. Duh. I forget about the oyster’s magic trick. I tend to just think of oysters as these shells with goop in them that I sometimes have to watch people pour into their mouths and how nauseous that makes me. I’m happy you underestimated yourself. That mistaken instinct could serve you well as long as you only half-trust it. Yes, in fact, France, or Paris a least, suddenly went up about 10 degrees yesterday to a toasty 14 degrees, and not a day too soon. How is the UK greeting spring’s flirtations? ** Justin D, Hey, J. The ‘PGL’ screen went very, very well, thank you for asking. There was a big audience, and they seemed to really get it and like it a lot. And it was interesting to watch and represent it again because Zac’s and my heads have been so involved in ‘Room Temperature’, which is a very different kind of film in many ways, for a long time. And, this is weird to say, I know, but we were blown away by how good ‘PGL’ is. We were thinking maybe we would have issues with it after moving on from it, but we felt really proud of it. So it was quite an interesting and heartening experience. Haha, the first little tingle reaction is almost kind of nice, but, yes, unfortunately the next step is a splitting headache and a total body numbness. But you can’t have everything. ** nat, Hi. Okay, ‘Mouthwashing’, I’m even more onto getting it now. Thanks. Happy that Davenport’s hints worked. He needs all the readers he can get these days. ** Uday, Hi, U! Thanks so much again for giving the blog the privilege. I’m happy that it obviously really paid off. I don’t think I know Omer Bartov, but I’ll look him up. Interesting: ‘Desperate Living’ as a test case. Curious if it occasions a mindmeld. When will you hear back from the professor? Have a real swell day! ** Joe, Hi Joe! I have almost all of my materials gathered, and now it’s mostly just wait and go to the appointment (March 18 in LA) and ‘pray to god’. I am non-stop confused by almost every highly lauded and award nominated film at the moment. All this ‘settling for’ is so depressing, or at least bewildering. No, I’ve never read Gerald Murnane. Should I? I hope you’re good too. The screening went really well (see my report to Justin), thank you! ** Nicholas., Uh, … *sparkle* Wow, that’s a lot. Your life is so momentous. I need to get out more, clearly, or maybe in more. Eating man ass is more meaningful if you take little breaks from it once in a while. Your truth is highly entertaining to me. That *sparkling* up above is appreciative. ** Dan Carroll, What feels kind to you is really just the truth. What are you working on now? Still the scoutmaster self-portrait? ** Okay. The post today has been restored by request from a reader of this blog who told me the old original had fallen into disrepair and who says they would like to have it functional for something related that the are writing, so what’s why you’re spending the day with Gordon Hessler, if you wondered. See you tomorrow.