Secret Key Films | Buy at Amazon | Review by Crites
I've quoted them before, and I'm sure I'll do it again, but in the words of the mighty Rupture, "I'm Havin' a Fucken' Flashback!" All the way from 1965 comes a B&W acid flick (and one of the first LSD movies) that actually displays a modicum of class: get yer red wine and sugar cubes out and prepare for THE LOVE STATUE.
(Spoiler Alert: As it really isn't very difficult at all to figure out who the killer is, particularly with the limited number of characters introduced, we're going to travel through to the very lysergic end here. So, feel free to quit reading at any time and go back to counting microdots on your own...)
A mournful showtune plays along with the credits as the visual theme is established through shots of sculptures, candles and skulls. Painter Tyler Westin (Peter Ratray) and his dancer girlfriend Lisa (Ondine Lise, aka Broadway musical performer Beati Seay) are lounging on a studio cot sharing post-coital cigarettes and talking hipster trash. Bliss quickly turns to rancor as Lisa puts on her clothes so that she can go to work and take them off again, talking down to her artist beau in increasingly low terms as she does so. And she knows she can get away with it too, seeing as how she's paying his rent and doling out pocket money. His impotent threats only yield additional insults: "You're not really much of anything Tyler. You're nothing but a big beautiful bowl of mush, baby. And without me, you're just one step away from the parade of pimps!" When he slaps her she laughs in his face, but when he hits her again she breaks a wine bottle over his head, ending the argument with his unconsciousness.
"Baby, don't you know, you're a loser every time," is the first thing he hears upon regaining consciousness and finding Lisa tending the cut on his noggin. More lowdown bohemian drama ensues as the lady leaves for her dancing gig, complete with thrown money and a screaming fit from the rooftop.
Tyler is just getting dressed when his fruity subnormal-looking sculptor buddy Stanley Jacobs (Harvey Goldenberg) shows up toting a bucket of clay and looking for a place to crash. Tyler lets him in, then leaves Stan to his own devices as he hustles off to The Bitter End Cafe to suck up to his cash cow sex kitten. There he meets up with a couple of his boho buddies, Josh and Nick, who introduce Ty to chanteuse Mashiko ("Introducing Hisako 'Choko' Tsukuba"). They all just want to help their buddy Tyler get over his troubles, and of course the hip new way to do that is with LSD. "It's the newest thing in dreams," Mashiko tells him. "Instant psychoanalysis, baby," one of the fellows adds. But Ty ain't having any: "I like my nightmares just the way they are," he says, opting for whiskey over acid. Nonetheless Mashiko gives him her card, telling him that if he changes his mind he can call her any time.
Soon Lisa takes her turn on the stage, but after a few sexy gyrations she's interrupted by Tyler, now well into his cups. When she literally kicks the drunken lout off of her stage ("You make such a lovely bathmat!" she says, using him as a stepping stone down from the platform) the audience's mocking laughter sends him stumbling out into the street. Falling down drunk on his way home, Tyler narrowly avoids getting shanghaied by some street hustler and moved in on by some stew bum before he can shut his door and try to continue drinking in peace. No, it's definitely not a good night for our boy Ty.
The torments continue when Lisa drops in briefly, only to leave again in a shroud of derisive laughter, and in desperation Tyler picks himself up and heads over to Mashiko's. There is some kind of funky happening going on there, with hipsters tripping balls left and right, and amid a lisping stream of metaphysical chatter the singer fixes Ty an LSD cocktail. Ty's leery of her claim that, "It produces strange mental transformations... It sometimes change the personality," and a passing acid eater's testimonial "One man's kicks is another man's psychosis" doesn't inspire much confidence in our young voyager. But his fears are apparently allayed by Mashiko's promise that, "You are young, strong; it will not harm you. It will only free you." Down the hatch...
Three days later Tyler still hasn't returned to the studio. As Lisa frets and Stan attempts to soothe her nerves, Tyler pulls himself from the tangle of crashed-out acid heads and staggers outside. His vision bleary and kaleidoscopic, Tyler trips through a city made foreign and nightmarish by the dose still coursing through his brain until he can take it no longer and screams himself out of it.
When he pulls himself together Tyler finds himself back in the studio, alone. Well, almost: there's an odd dreamlike sequence in which he has an erotic interaction with Stan's living sculpture of Lady Godiva, which has been completed in Ty's absence. When Tyler comes out of his haze the first thing he gets is another round of Lisa's bitching. "It's over, Lisa," he tells her, even when she relents and tries to play nice. Weepy drama unfolds as each party loudly justifies their meager existence, but Tyler's doors of perception have been well and truly opened and he walks out of the studio a new man with a new mindset.
As a carefree Tyler feeds the ducks in Central Park, Lisa shifts into savage cunt mode and begins slashing his canvases to shreds. She's pretty much destroyed the entire studio, Stanley's Godiva included, when a presence seen only as a shadow enters the flat and, without hesitation or introduction, stabs her to death.
Tyler returns to the studio as happy as a clam, toting a sackful of groceries and Chianti. His mood darkens considerably when he sees the damage wrought by Lisa's wrath, but when he finds Lisa's body, sprawled out on the floor like a broken doll with glassy eyes, things go from bad to worse. Confronted with this all-too-real horror after days of drug-induced hallucination, Tyler does the only thing he can: he runs away.
In a subway station Tyler spots Stanley's Lady Godiva model (Nancy Norman, aka skin mag model Gigi Darlene) and follows her onto the Express to Manhattan. He can't quite place her face however, and his awkward attempts to make conversation turn into a chase out into the cold New York night. He finally catches up to her, and as they recognize each other he tells her that he really needs to talk to Stan; all of Stan's material has been cleared out of the studio, only one of Lady Godiva's hands being left behind as evidence that he was ever there at all.
The Lady consents to have a cup of coffee with him, and in the conversation that follows she strongly suggests that old Stanley isn't just the "harmless nut" he seems to be. After hearing Ty's story the Lady agrees to help him, and the two split up and try to find the errant sculptor. Tyler tries a local watering hole with no luck, but in the process learns that Lisa's body has been found and that he, of course, is the prime suspect in her murder.
The Lady, meanwhile, receives a surprise phonecall from Stanley. He'd really like to see her, he says, and she agrees to meet him at the Park in an hour. As she sets out to find Tyler and give him the update she is shadowed by Stanley, who's starting to look more like the pederast's version of Peter Sellers than ever. Together Tyler and the Lady head to the designated bridge in Central Park, with Tyler hiding underneath while Lady remains up top. But Stanley is already there, and he quickly grabs the girl. An NY standoff takes place, during which Stan admits that he went "crazy" when he saw his busted-up masterpiece. "Damn Lisa! She was no good Ty, she deserved to be killed!" But he did make sure to tell the cops all about Ty and Lisa's volatile relationship, apparently sealing his friend's doom. As the only other person who knew Stanley was using Ty's studio is Lady, Stan pulls a knife on her and drags her away across the park, warning Tyler against following them.
Stanley bundles Lady into his car and drives away as snow begins to fall, leaving Tyler to run blindly through the winter streets of the city. Fortuitously his buddy Nick pulls up on a motorbike and pledges his allegiance to Ty's cause. "I always knew he was a little batty," Nick says of Stan. "Josh got to him the other night, gave him some LSD. He went completely crazy, went out of his mind! That probably explains what happened!" Not only that, but Nick also remembers a place Stan told him he used to visit, a dam out on Highway 4. Without further hesitation the lads crowd onto the bike and roar off in that direction.
The dam is indeed where Stanley has taken his Lady, and he seems to be just waiting for Tyler to show up. The moment he does Stan ditches the girl and takes off on foot, and a picturesque footchase around the snowy stone architecture takes place. This ends abruptly when Stan, who had been way out in front, suddenly and unwisely decides to climb over the railing at the very top of the dam. With a shrill scream his body is seen plummeting over the side, leaving Ty and the Lady to run off into the wintry distance together.
Director Durston admits in his interview (see below) that he was influenced by European cinema, particularly the films of Fellini and Antonioni, and this is most evident in the eroticism and morbidity of the early scenes. The black and white presentation enhances this effect, and at the same time does a fine job of carrying this unpredictable ambiance into the gritty lofts and dives of New York City.
The feeling of Sixties' Greenwich Village drug culture is vividly brought to life as bums, artists, queers, dopers, dancers and beatniks all flow through a series of studios, bars, cityscapes and crash pads. Against this vibrant setting (which comes across quite well even in black and white) there is an emotional street theater realism to the acting which makes for a coarse and enjoyable experience.
It is an intentionally artsy film, what with the emphasis on, well, art and all, but much of this (aside from Stanley's oozing about his own "genius") isn't nearly as pretentious or off-putting as it could have been. Instead, the trappings of artistry serve to enhance the film in a colorful and intriguing way ("Paintings by Sobossek"). Groovy soundtrack by Dottie Stallworth, too.
Of course no LSD Experience would be complete without a bevy of trippy extras: audio commentary with writer/director Durston and film historian Michael Bowen; a pair of alternate scenes ("Tyler & Lisa Break-Up" and "Tyler Phone Call"); interviews with Durston ("Behind the Love Statue," in which the director, now in his eighties, talks about being approached by some Harvard grads to do a non-union LSD flick, and subsequently getting interested enough to get dosed himself. [Dig the story about thinking he's a gum machine in the subway!] Durton also discusses his actors and various aspects of filming, looking back fondly on the experience as a whole.) and Peter Ratray ("A Trip with Peter Ratray," who talks about coming to NY as a teenager and scoring the role of Tyler, and having a damn good time in the process. [Including an anecdote about "this kid Bob Dylan" who was playing at The Bitter End at the time.] As did Durston, Ratray talks about the filmmaking experience and his co-stars, with no shortage of colorful side stories.); and a Secret Key Trailer Vault that includes promos for questionable gems such as All the Sins of Sodom, Grindhouse Double Feature Punk Rock / Pleasure Palace, Daddy Darling and the like.
But the real crackerjack prize here is the pair of LSD "scare films" from the Sixties. 1967's LSD-25, written, produced and directed by Dr. David W. Parker, "Under the auspices of the San Mateo Union High School District," begins with some goateed cat buying acid on the street. "The cost: a few dollars. And his mind," the Rod Serling-style narration tells us. Mr. Hipster's vision blurs, the narration takes the point of view of LSD-25 itself (who now sounds suspiciously like Timothy Leary), and sinister Sixties sounds play out as various hippies talk about how easy it is to get the stuff and various 'squares' bemoan the wicked nature of the drug. But LSD-25 just wants to set the record straight: "It is, as they say, time for the facts. High time." High time indeed. The chemical compound of LSD is laid out, with an emphasis on the drug's potency and variety made clear. Unclear is how it works exactly, but there is no doubt that it does work. "Altogether I'm one of the most perplexingly powerful drugs conceivable," our acid host boasts. The hazard of the very lack of control over this controlled substance is made clear, but that's not stopping the kids from taking it. "Drop a cap of me, man, and drop out. But watch it, because the trip can be a trap, too: you never know where a ticket with me will take you." Now the film shifts into bad trip mode, with acid casualties sobbing and freaking out (cue vintage monster movie soundtrack). Watch out for the flashback! (Or "after-flash.") "It's not fun at all...not even the coroner knows how to tell whether or not I was part of this scene." (This against a staged shot of a bloody car accident.) More bum trips follow, all the way to the morgue. "I'm so depressed," moans LSD-25, "Depressed because I'm so badly misused and abused by those who know so little about me." It's not all bad, but, "I am never the sort of thing that one takes lightly, or for kicks. Because, you see, I can kick back." Acid has an ego, apparently, and boy can it prattle on. Damn, all this needs is a creepy little cartoon capsule dancing around and fucking with its users. Bottom line: Acid is scary! Too bad for Mr. Hepcat from the beginning though: "...He may be terrified by what he sees. But that's his problem. Not mine." Gee, thanks LSD-25!
Your Amazing Mind starts with an odd George Washington analogy, used to demonstrate the advancement of ideas and invention over time: "The human mind is the world's single greatest resource." This muddles around for some time, and then, uh-oh, here come the school kids, and you can feel the heavy hand of the righteousness of suburban utopia coming down: "Only with clear thinking in an unclouded and undistorted brain can life be better and more rewarding." Of course there are enemies of the Reich: "It may seem unbelievable, but there are some people who disturb and twist their minds on purpose." (Say it ain't so, doc!) It's those damn dirty drug users again, and in no time we're being treated to shots of ambulances and emergency ward entrances, as well as a lecture on the importance of 'doctor's orders.' Various types of drugs begin to swim across the screen, overlaid with colorful brain pattern animation in an ironically trippy presentation that defines controlled substances and their effects. ("Strangely, some people get kicks from them." You don't say...) More scare tactic imagery follows ("Any drug, wrongly used, can change the way your mind works, and keep you from thinking clearly. They can make you very sick. They can even kill you."), and pretty soon some kid's keeling over from an overdose of airplane glue and a pothead is sailing his car over an embankment. And then, finally, our old friend LSD. ("It brings on the symptoms of insanity.") Well, what about LSD? Just ask J. Thomas Ungerleider, M.D., of the UCLA Medical Center: "LSD has no proven use in medicine. Repeated use of LSD may permanently alter the brain's function. In fact many people, after using LSD, have had to be placed in mental institutions because they've become mentally ill." (Lather, rinse, repeat.) "LSD also changes the cell structure of certain cells within the body, probably permanently, and thus may affect your unborn children." (BOO!) And don't forget, "Any trip is a bad trip when your amazing mind isn't thinking clearly." Habit forming drugs are also touched upon before the school kids are trotted out again to regurgitate the lessons with which they've been indoctrinated: "I think that all trips are bad trips because they bend your mind, and who wants to bend their mind?" "If I had to take pills to be part of a gang, I wouldn't want to be in that gang. I'd have more fun without the pills." I'm not sure what sort of a lesson that last one is, but you pay attention, young man. And on and on and on and on, so be the evils of drugs, amen. Especially LSD.
Quite a lot of material on one disc here, coming in a full color slipcase and including a collectible booklet of liner notes. Tune in, why dontcha?
