Ep. 104: Paul Scheer

The movie generally recognized as igniting the theatrical midnight film movement is Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealist El Topo, which opened in December 1970 at the Elgin in New York. Playing with the conventions of the spaghetti Western, the film was described by one newspaper critic as "full of tests and riddles" and "more phony gore than maybe 20 years of The Wild Bunch." El Topo regularly sold out every night for months, with many fans returning on a weekly basis. It ran at the theater through June 1971, until at the prompting of John Lennon-who was reported to have seen the film at least three times-Beatles manager Allen Klein purchased the film through his ABKCO film company and gave it a relatively orthodox re-release.