HALL OF FAME

The following is a list of our favorite people and things. None are unknown, but all deserve more attention then they've received.

RANDY JURGENSEN
One look at Randy Jurgensen's face tells you he's a real cop. It's weary and slightly disgusted; the eyes are black and keen--you have to earn this guy's trust. Plus, he's got the mustache.
      Jurgensen is a former NYPD lieutenant whose undercover expertise enabled him to work narcotics without ever being placed in a position where he had to use drugs. He assisted fellow supercops Sonny Grosso and Eddie Egan on the real French Connection bust, and joined them as a technical advisor for the ensuing film. All three appear in the movie. Randy is the laconic desk sergeant who informs Henri Devereaux that the impound garage is a no smoking area. William Friedkin would call on Jurgensens's services for three more films. In fact, one of Jurgensen's undercover cases, the one that earned him his gold shield, would be part of the inspiration for the controversial Cruising.
      Throughout the 70s, and into the 80s, Jurgensen had a Forrest Gump-like ability to appear in a variety of movies at unexpected moments--usually as a cop, sometimes a crook. In The Godfather, he's one of the gunmen, all of whom were real life cops, that shoots Sonny on the causeway. At the start of Sorcerer, he's the gangster that helps Roy Scheider out of the country. He later gets a climactic close-up and music cue that would make Sergio Leone proud. Other movies on his rap sheet include Report to the Commissioner, God Told Me To, Superman (you've got to watch it letterboxed to catch him here), Fort Apache the Bronx, Cruising, and Donnie Brasco.
When a director worked with Randy, he didn't just get his experience and streetwise mug, he also got the power of his badge. Randy rode along with Friedkin and stunt driver Bill Hickman during the filming of The French Connection car chase, and it was his gold shield and cop blanche that enabled them to steal those breakneck POV shots. Bill Lustig recalls that Randy Jurgensen's sway allowed them shoot the subway scenes in Maniac sans insurance. Who says there's never a cop around when you need one?


LAURENCE HARVEY
Likeability is a valuable commodity among actors. Audiences like to empathize with the characters they see on screen, be they heroes or villains. One would be hard pressed to find an actor possessing any degree of success that was not, in some way, likeable.
      And then, of course, there's Laurence Harvey.
      Rejected by audiences, maligned by co-stars, and largely forgotten today, Harvey occasionally found himself in roles that fit him like a Saville Row suit. And when given the right material, he put his more famous, and likeable, co-stars to shame.
      His first moment of serendipitous casting came as the proud, stiff-backed, by-the-book Col. William Travis, commander of the besieged mission in 1960's The Alamo. While the reputation of the film has (rightly) grown over the years, it is remembered primarily as the directorial debut of the film's star, John Wayne. Wayne and co-star Richard Widmark play, respectively, Davey Crockett and Jim Bowie as loveable roustabouts with a drink in one hand, a six-gun in the other, and a long soliloquy about Texas and freedom waiting around every corner. Both of their characters were perfectly suited to their personalities - and so was Harvey's. William Travis is not loveable, but he is a believable leader: someone men would conceivably follow into battle, but with whom they would not be carousing later on. Harvey had the toughest job on the whole show; he had to be strong, charismatic, and someone that you'd want to trip if you saw him coming down the stairs. Watch him in just about every scene he's in; you'll find your eyes being drawn to him no matter what else is happening on screen. When some actors are not in close up or actually reading lines, they kind of hit the snooze button. They're home; they just don't feel like answering the door. But even when Harvey isn't speaking in a scene, he's always thinking and observing. His face is like a book that you've just realized is really good after all. His portrayal of Travis holds the film together and prevents it from being just another routine western, with the usual John Ford stock company of character actors adding plenty of ham to the sandwich (I'm looking at you, Chill Wills).
      Two years later Harvey got what most actors can only dream of, an important role in an incontrovertible masterpiece. In The Manchurian Candidate, Harvey plays Raymond Shaw, described as "The kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known" by nearly every one of his Korean War platoon-mates. However, it is quickly obvious that Harvey/Shaw is the opposite of each and every positive adjective attributed to him. This is not just a great running gag in the film, but also the key to a mystery that ties together the post-war nightmares of former army captain Ben Marco (Frank Sinatra), the political aspirations of Raymond's buffoonish stepfather, and Raymond's own tragic plight. There is a great moment when Shaw, after a few drinks, admits that he is "not loveable", oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world had come to that conclusion decades ago.
      Lead actor Sinatra, director John Frankenheimer, and screenwriter George Axelrod would probably agree with the audience that The Manchurian Candidate, is a career peak for everyone involved (and if you only know Angela Lansbury from reruns of Murder, She Wrote, you will really be in for a surprise!) But it's Harvey's courageous performance as the brainwashed killer that elevates the film to 'classic' level. The Manchurian Candidate simply could not have been made without him.  What other actor would have had the guts to give a performance that could potentially alienate most of the audience?  Harvey has the almost impossible task of humanizing a character that, on the page, is incredibly...well, unlovable. If the audience cannot accept Raymond as a human being, they will not care what happens to him when that humanity is violated.  Just watch him closely for the last 20 minutes and decide for yourself.
      Harvey's reputation as a difficult actor would follow him throughout his career.  He would work steadily (if not frequently) until his death in 1973, always bringing the same dedication to the work no matter how big the role or budget.  His final film, Welcome to Arrow Beach, is more noteworthy for having been edited by director-star Harvey while on his deathbed, than for its cannibalism infused plot.  It has never been available on video in the US and shows up on television about as frequently as a NAMBLA commercial. Harvey's best late career role may have been for television, portraying a deaf chess master (Emmett Clayton) who kills to keep his crown in a 1973 episode of Columbo, "The Most Dangerous Match". Once again Harvey is very much in his element, playing an arrogant, cold, yet brilliant man who always appears (in classic Harvey style) to be weighed down with some massive guilt that pride would never let him speak of openly.  He's a perfect foil for Peter Falk's dogged detective, and they seem to be having a ball playing off each other.  Watch for the scene when Harvey takes on multiple chess opponents while Columbo pecks at him.  His swing in just a few minutes of screen time from a super-confidant ringmaster to a shamed, defeated shell of a man is a superlative moment.


RODD KEITH
Before talk radio and the internet, America's crackpots relied on song-poems to celebrate their gripes, fetishes, and ramblings. Imagine that Rodgers and Hammerstein never met and only collaborated through intermediaries and ransom notes, and you have a basic understanding of the song-poem dynamic. Responding to ads in the backs of magazines and pennypincher newspapers, would-be songsmiths sent their lyrics and money to anonymous musicians who promised finished hit records. The records were supplied, but none of have become hits in the traditional sense of the word. In this realm of musical chaos theory, the name Rodd Keith is both a constant and a variable.
      Most of the musicians who recorded these shadowy works, were session players working on the clock. They called the job "song sharking," and on an average day they could move from first read-through to finished track in about an hour. Many provided standard country, rock, soul, or lounge tracks for the words, and this is where the unique charm of the song-poem comes from--earnest performances of outlandish but sincere lyrics against defiantly straight or pop backgrounds. Listen to "Blind Man's Penis (Peace and Love)" or "Virgin Child of the Universe" for glowing examples of this. However, on Rodd Keith's tracks, curious words meet curious music.
      Rodney Keith Eskelin was an artist trapped in a freelance world, and his music reflects his passion for jazz and experimental arrangements--and an increasing interest in psychedelics. Unlike other song-poem musicians, he didn't churn out musical sausage links, but instead followed the recipe of the lyrics. Each song was a chance to do something new, and the arrhythmic stanzas and kaleidoscopic themes were a challenge to be met. When Dorothy Schneider submitted her poem "The Beat of the Traps," it's unlikely that she expected the stripped-down, drum-driven primal chant that resulted, but to my ears the outcome is the best and most thrilling one possible. Likewise, the finished versions of "Tahiti", "Little Rug Bug", "Ecstacy [sic] to Frenzy", and "The Flitting Firefly" are the fascinating fruits of an independent talent. Mixing found sounds and unexpected melodies against mellotron-drenched backgrounds, this anonymous shark, whether he was working under the name Rodd Keith, Rod Rogers, or Rod and The MSR Singers, created a distinctive body of work that is beautifully eccentric and off-center, even in the world of song-poems.       Of course, these were works for hire, and sometimes the patrons/writers weren't pleased with the results. Mary Clignett returned Rodd's first attempt at her song "I'm Just the Other Woman." Apparently, she found the lurid tone, trippy backwards piano track, and seasick jazz arrangement too unusual. Strangely, she seems to have accepted Rodd's second attempt, which features his warbling trans-gender lead vocal.
The circumstances of Rodd's death are mysterious. It's unclear whether he jumped or fell from a Hollywood overpass on December 15, 1974, at the age of 37. Towards the end of his life, he became increasingly estranged from friends and family, speaking backwards and relying on cryptic word-play. His frustration with the limits of his medium increased, as did his drug use. Maybe he felt the outside world hadn't given him the necessary breaks. Maybe he realized some internal failing would always prevent him from sustaining the momentum necessary to break free of his song-poem orbit. Or maybe, and this could be most frustrating of all, he understood that song-poems were the medium he was born to express himself in, that these otherworldly transmissions charged his creative batteries in a way nothing else could.

      Rodd's son, Ellery Eskelin, is also a talented musician. You can visit his site here. To find out more about song-poems, visit The American Song-Poem Music Archives. You might also want to check out the albums I Died Today: The Music of Rodd Keith, The American Song-Poem Anthology, and Songs in the Key of Z.


DEATHDREAM
The early 1970's were full of movies that were destined to fall through the cracks. The small, independent studios were cranking out as many pictures as possible in what was thought to be the easiest genre in which to turn a quick profit, horror. And without big studio money behind them for publicity and grade-A theater chains, dozens of gems every year simply got lost in the shuffle. And even now, at a time when even the questionable talents of Jess Franco have seen pristine home video editions of their films made available, some of these low-budget classics are almost impossible to find. But with a little perseverance, you can locate a copy of one of the most remarkable horror films that you'll ever see: Deathdream.

      As the Brooks family sits down to dinner, they receive some dreadful news. Andy, the only son of Charles and Christine (John Marley and Lynn Carlin) and brother of Cathy (Anya Ormsby) has been killed in action in Vietnam. The mood changes drastically when, later that same night, Andy is discovered standing inside the doorway. He seems pale, thin, and a bit remote, but he is otherwise in fine physical shape. Over the next few days though, Andy's remoteness becomes more acute. He doesn't want to see anyone, or even have people in the town know that he's home; he just sits in a creaky rocking chair all day long, as if in a trance. Meanwhile, some of the townsfolk are turning up dead, including a truck driver who was last seen with a strangely quiet soldier that he had picked up on the road to town on the very night Andy arrived.

      To reveal any more would be to ruin a few really wonderful surprises, including several that should have had a place among the most classic, iconic moments in modern horror.  Low-key and unpretentious, without any particularly salacious elements to reel in ticket buyers, it's easy to realize how Deathdream went by unnoticed.  It's bitterly ironic that this happened during a period when American horror movies were finally being treated in a semi-serious fashion (thanks to a string of critical and commercial hits like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist.) It was certainly one of the first films to deal with the effect that Vietnam had, not just on the people who fought it, but the people who waited for those soldiers to come home.  The film begins almost as a sequel to W. W. Jacobs' short story, "The Monkey's Paw", as Andy arrives at the front door, as if to grant the wish of his grief stricken mother. It's Andy's father (not restricted by the same unconditional love for him that mom has) who first notices how strangely Andy has been acting. By the time Cathy realizes that there is something very, very wrong with her brother, the battle lines are drawn; and it's mom who'll sacrifice what's left of her family to protect her only son.

Director Bob Clark, who went on to make Porky's and A Christmas Story, creates and sustains an atmosphere of impending doom right from the start. Just as William Freidkin did with The Exorcist, Clark shot Deathdream in an almost documentary style, eschewing the exploitation elements that were so pervasive in most early '70s horror films. This technique allows us to get painfully close to the Brooks family, like a neighbor peering in through a window, watching the family unravel. The casting of mostly unknown actors also helps in this regard, though this was probably a function of the limited budget rather than an artistic consideration. (However, most will recognize Marley from The Godfather, trying to keep Johnny Fontaine from getting that picture!) Perhaps Clark's neatest trick is the character of Andy.  Most directors would have seen him as merely a vessel; or worse, a pretentious allegory of the horrors of Vietnam, but Clark (and actor Richard Backus) managed to squeeze an extra few dimensions out of Andy, just in time for the riotous finale. For the majority of the picture, we are only shown Andy's dark side sparingly.  Instead, Clark concentrates on how Andy's return destroys the emotional core of the family and holds the gruesomeness in check (with one startling exception). That is until Cathy decides that a double date might be just the thing to bring Andy back to his old self. So Cathy and her boyfriend Bob reunite Andy with his pre-Nam girlfriend Joanne for an ill-advised evening at the local drive-in.  The ensuing mayhem, as Andy's last grip on humanity drops away (along with a bit of his skin), ranks as one of the true high points of the last 40 years of horror cinema.  I sat with an audience at a revival showing over a year ago that was struck positively dumb as the scene turns from hysterical laughter to bone-chilling fright and back again. Yet after all that, the final scene, when we find out where Andy has been planning on going all along, is unexpectedly touching.

      Blue Underground is set to release the film on DVD sometime in '04, but if you can't wait it can be found in gray-market editions on Ebay. However you see it, I guarantee that you will not be disappointed.


New inductees will be coming soon....


Questions? Comments? Nominations?