Wild Guitar

Well OK, maybe not the best movie ever, but definitely the best rock 'n' roll movie ever. Or at least the best r'n'r movie of 1962. How about the best 1962 r'n'r movie that has an Olympic figure skating scene? Settled.

This is one of those films that's so bad it wraps around the scale back to the good side. IMDb voters must have a collective colon blockage if they can't appreciate the magnificence of this picture. It truly breaks all the laws (and I suspect deliberately so, knowing the bizarre, tongue in cheek humour of director/co-star Steckler).

First you have an anti-antihero: a punk who comes motoring into town looking like Brando on a bad hair day, but as it turns out, he's about as square as a boyscout, polite as a busboy and has babyface cheeks you just want to pinch and say oogyboogyboo.

Next you have a bunch of felonious thugs who are so endearing & hilarious you want to make them the best man at your wedding. We have a goofy chick who suddenly breaks into a world class ice skating routine. And finally--here's the clincher--totally out of left field we have director Steckler himself playing the role of "Steak", a psychopathic headcase who would make Jeffrey Dahmer turn in his meat cleaver. This movie has it all!!

The story itself gives us a hyper-cynical satire of the filthy entertainment industry, but it's packaged in a neat, wholesome, early-Elvis type show. Still, there are indeed some moments of dark lucidity, especially in a particular scene where a drunk Willem Dafoe-looking fellow gives us a powerful prophecy of how all rock sensations die in LA. Throughout the film, we get camera shots from bizarre angles & creepy closeups, again giving us the impression of a bad acid trip. But somehow the film manages to stay squarely in the realm of campy fun.

So I can't make up my mind... Is this film so bad that it's good? Or is it so groundbreakingly good that it's bad? In either case you need to check it out. If nothing else, you will remember it forever.

I'm worried. You see, after seeing this movie, I've just decided that Arch Hall, Jr. is my role model, and frankly I don't think that's a very healthy thing.

The thing is that I've never been known for my looks and personality. But Arch Hall, Jr. is as ugly as a canker sore, and has a personality (at least in this film) that grates like a table saw cutting through a nail. But he gets to play the teen idol singing star (even though he plays guitar like a gibbon wearing boxing gloves and sings like he's just stubbed his toe) and _he gets all the chicks_! Wow! Maybe there's hope for me yet.

Of course, it didn't hurt that his daddy was the producer and screenwriter, and that he acted under the sure and steady hand of director Ray Dennis Steckler (of TISCWSLABMUZ fame). Nor did it hurt that he was surrounded by actors so insanely moronic as to render young Arch suave and sophisticated-looking.

Aww, who am I kidding? I'm many things, but I'm no Arch Hall, Jr.

This fun filled romp about overnight sensation Bud Eagle, played not too well by Arch Hall Jr, is another contribution from Fairway International. The movie tries to be a musical comedy; I repeat "tries". Steak, played by Ray Dennis Steckler, does his role so serious that his loathsome presence made him the most interesting to watch. Mr. McCauley....I mean Mike, plays the unscrupulous typical agent. Ironically, this was probably an attempt to launch Arch Hall Jr's music/movie career by his dad, but it really didn't pan out as planned. Ah, Arch's song "Vickie" is here and makes more sense as opposed to being in Eegah where Arch's gal is named Roxie. Was anyone else holding their lunch down in the sappy rink scene. Too much Arch Hall face there! There are 3 Stooges wannabes and I cringe at every scene on how phonetic and unfeeling their delivery is. Have you ever seen a holdup with a branch? You will. I really wanted Steak to pistol whip these dolts.

Arch Hall Jr goes to town lip-synching at least 4 numbers here. There's "Twist Fever" where Arch embarrasses himself with in that white suit and some song with the words "I'm gonna be a big boy" which had me laughing with those kooky camera angles and the band and gals trying to pretend to be interested (watch the girl singing silently to the song – so FUNNY!). And why did this song make me start singing "You keep on knocking but you can't come in"? More fun with Vickie's obsession over Bud and her glassy eyed, maniacal, stalker-like stare. When she watches Bud from home in her more than formal dress, notice her completely different outfit during her running scene. I guess the living room attire wasn't good enough for him. Don't miss the exciting fight climax which involves an empty truck which looks similar to the PDS truck from "The Choppers"! Also, those really lame mummies from "Eegah" show up for no apparent reason in a run down shack. All in all, a typical Halls production, but it's a hoot to watch.

This was the historic collaboration between Arch Hall, Sr, who wrote the script, and first-time director Ray Dennis Steckler. It's not on the level of Steckler's future bizarre works, but still has enough strange artistic choices to keep Stecklerites interested.

Lunk-headed Bud Eagle (Eegah's scrunchy-faced teen dream Arch Hall, Jr), spastically rides his motorcycle into Hollywood to become a star and before the night is over he's stumbled onto a variety show, played his guitar, and gotten tons of offers to cut records, be on TV, and sleep with comely starlets. Unfortunately, he gets signed by crooked agent Mike McCauley (played by Arch Senior) and his evil henchmen Steak (Steckler) who sets Bud up in the house from `Eegah', the one with the oven in the living room. They also give him a new guitar to replace his crummy one, but I'm not sure which guitar is the titular wild one. Mike goes about getting Bud some gigs: `Bud Eagle? For five hundred dollars? You're talking- you're crazy! Five THOUSAND is more like it! He's the hottest thing in the country!'

The weird thing is, Mike and Steak insist on doing shady business deals to make Bud a star, like creating fake teenage fan clubs and trying to start an `Eagle feather' fad. But what the hell? They're doing all these under-handed things to make money, but they don't have too. I mean, Bud got all those offers, right? So why don't they just take the offers and make money? They also constantly try to sabotage Arch's relationship with weird-faced diner-denizen Vicki. Bud's response it to squeeze out the love ode `Vicki' as heard in `Eegah'. While he sings, Steckler's wife Carolyn Brandt `dances' around the stage.

Steckler's next movie was his `Citizen Kane', `The Incredibly Strange Creatures who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb', while The Halls continued their downward spiral, with Hall, Sr, insisting his son was star material in flicks like `The Sadist', `The Nasty Rabbit', and `Deadwood ‘76'.

This was featured on `Teenage Theatre', a video series produced by Johnny Legend (who sings the Teenage Theatre song) and hosted by antediluvian `teen' Mamie Van Doren, who more recently frightened movie goers in `Slackers'.

Formula plot about a small time boy Bud Eagle, Arch Hall Jr, from North Dakota coming to Hollywood looking to make it big in the world of Rock & Roll music.

Meeting cute Vicki Wills,Nancy Czar, who gives the starving and broke Bud her lunch to eat at a local diner she tells the naive and shy out of towner that's she to appear at the local amateur hour TV show that evening and invites him to come along.

Just like in the movies, damn I keep forgetting this is a movie, the person thats to appear with Vickie on the stage gets stage fright and runs out of the theater and now the shows MC Hal Kenton, Paul Voorhees, is forced to put the startled North Dakotan with Vickie on stage! Bud ends up knocking the crowd dead with his wild guitar and high-pitched voice to becomes an instant Rock & Roll success and teenage idol.

The movie "Wild Guitar" has it's moments with a bunch of Bowery Boys wannabes, that's really aiming high in Hollywood, who kidnap Bud only having him turn the tables on them and then using the three jerks Weasel Stupid & Brains,Bill Llyod Jonathon Krle & Mike Trelbor, to shake down his manager Mike McCauley,Arch Hall Sr, for $15,000.00. The kidnappers end up losing the ransom money when Mike's top henchman Stake, Ray Dennis, breaks into their hideout. After what has to be one of the most insane and crazy slug-feasts this side of the World Wresteling Federation the three take off after dropping Stake but forgetting to take the ransom money with them!

Bud who fell in love with Vickie has the devious and scheming Mike split them up because he felt that she would hurt his career by making him not available, as a boyfriend or husband, to the millions of frenzied young girls and teeny-boppers, calling themselves Eagle Feathers, all over the USA in Bud Eagel fan clubs who are just wild and crazy about him.

Hiding out in Madge's,Marie Denn, diner as a dishwasher Bud gets in touch with his All-American football hero brother Ted, Al Scott, back in North Dakota for help and the two set up his manager Mike McCauley together with his #1 henchman Stake with of all things a gift that Mike gave him to improve his music and singing.

Even though the movie "Wild Guitar" is both corny and cheaply made it did show how things in the music business is done in regards to taking an up and coming Rock & Roll singer, who's not too sharp when it comes to his or her financial future, and how after he's no longer popular and not putting cash in the till he's then drop like a case of the Black Plague.

There's a very effective scene in the film where Buds, after he was held captive and almost raped by Mike's sexy dancer Daisy/Virginia Broderick,having a heart to heart talk with another Mike McCauley discovery former Rock & Roll phenomenon Don Proctor, Robert Crumb, with him telling Bud what he's in store for with a sleazy crumb like his former boss McCauley as his manager.