Lirazel

I first saw this movie as part of a double video, with Phil Tucker's Robot Monster..needless to say, this bill wasn't put together as two brilliant examples of the best films ever made.This one rules, though..there is nothing like seeing overweight wrestling women, Samson (the masked mexican wrestler) and the WORST EVER mummy costume all together in one feature. Don't bother trying to follow the plot, or searching for the myriad errors in continuity..just lay back with your sense of the absurd in hand, along with something cold and refreshing, and let your troubles melt away in a fine and glorious wash of true silliness.

I've only given one vote of 10 on this database..guess which film got it. Having read the Frank Norris novel, and seen the truncated but still astonishing remains of Von Stroheim's masterpiece, I can understand perfectly why the full version is the most sought after of all lost films. Actors who use the screen instead of acting as if they are on a stage, camera work that moves lightly through the script, lighting that tells the story instead of complimenting the lead actress, it's all done well here. The titles, I understand, were inserted to fill gaps left by the editing and don't work well, but it's a minor carp. Just screen any other silents made before it, and it quickly becomes apparent that this is the real thing.

It seems as though people miss Peckinpah's messages. This is not a bloodbath, or a violent film..it is an anti-violence statement..when Benny pursues death, it claims everyone around him..by forsaking music and love, he proves that he is "already dead", and the flies in the car are just as much there for him as the head. Peckinpah himself, time and time again, let the critics know what he was doing, but their narrow views wouldn't allow them to see the power here, and when they felt bad at the end of this movie, they thought it was just a bad film. It's not..just a disturbing one. Personally, I think that Paul Verhoeven and Oliver Stone should be forced to watch this one until the message sinks in..violence is ugly, and if you glorify it with pretty montage work, you will wind up living in a society that collectively believes that violence is glamorous.