The Manipulator

"The Manipulator" is truly one of its kind.Supremely bizarre,surreal and acid inspired horror film set in an abandoned warehouse filled with plastic mannequins,cobwebs and dusty movie props.Mickey Rooney plays bearded B.J Lang,a madman who keeps a young woman played by Luana Anders captive in his building and keeps referring to her as Carlotta,his acting star.She is tied to a wheelchair and begs for food.Rooney torments Carlotta and forces her to act out scenes for his theatre piece."The Manipulator" may come across as obnoxious and boring,but I found it somewhat fascinating in its uncompromising portrayal of insanity.Mickey Rooney is certainly unforgettable as a completely deranged B.J Lang.The shots of mannequins are creepy and there are some brilliant scenes of dementia.6 out of 10 for manipulating of my consciousness.

Cinematic travesty is right! This film is rancid and putrid and boring and so God awful! Mickey Rooney plays some mental case that thinks he is making movies back in 1947 in an old props room where he instructs his "actress" Luana Anders in Cyrano De Bergerac. All 90 minutes basically takes place in this "loft" that really looks like nothing more than the backstage of a small theater. Watching this film was excrutiating torture as we get to see Mickey Rooney give the worst performance of his career, as well as Luana Anders! Rooney is barking out orders to stagehands that aren't there one moment, then he is dancing around and singing "Pardon Me Boys, Is That the Chattanooga Choochoo." He is painful to watch as in one scene he wears make-up and looks like a cheap hooker on the Vegas Strip(based on his looks...one real CHEAP hooker to boot!). Most of the time he looks like some maniacal gnome. Some of the scenes even have speeded scenes so we can see him dance about in fast motion no less. Anders is just as bad(at least looks good) as we never really can tell what her motivation is or what she really feels. This is just one real reel bad film. Director Yabo Yablinsky deserves most of the blame as he forfeits plot structure, characterization, pacing, motivation, and all those things that are a part of a good film for nonsense, halluciatory dream sequences that mean absolutely nothing, and odd, repetitive camera angles. Whew! What a stinker! Yabo is one yahoo!!!

There's a not insignificant realm of cinema where art unbound roams raging into madness. But less in number are the films that cross into this maelstrom and there not only find meaning but grasp quintessence, and The Manipulator is one of these films. As uncompromising a study of madness as I've ever seen, it tells the story of ageing film-maker BJ Lang and his captive Carlotta who he forces to play Roxanne to his Cyrano in scenes from the Rostand play. The story is barely skeletal, mostly a two handed piece with a short appearance from a wino, its flesh is its dialogue and technique and the two entwine remarkably well, not that you would guess from the average reviewer here, most of whom seem to be hung up on not understanding (nor even attempting to) what they were seeing. Essentially The Manipulator looks at the processes of art in abstraction, removed from their connection to the creation of a cohesive work, and treats them as means of psyche infection, a force that has entirely infested poor BJ Lang, breaking down all the structures that hold him together. In his shadowy and cobwebbed studio he acts the role of director, talks to mannequins as his crew, adopts their voices to talk to himself, plays Cyrano, plays actor, even self aware mad old man. With nothing to hold his notions separate he skips wildly between fiction and reality, artifice and insanity, self knowledge and deceit, even touching on legitimate insights along the way. And in the process slowly but surely a picture of art run to its terrible potential emerges, the manipulations of creating fiction, the manipulations of crafting an actual artwork, these processes of one wielding control over many, we see that complete control, to some the loftiest goal, means the collapse of the individual and rebuilding as collective consciousness, consciousness oh so difficult to hold in any kind of check once developed. It is as you might guess, not exactly an easy film. That it works so well is to a great extent down to Mickey Rooney as BJ Lang, giving an extraordinarily uninhibited performance. Every shade of pathos and mania, even strange grandeur, singing, dancing, physical comedy, there are scarce few other turns in film so free and wild. He is utterly, bizarrely compelling, hateful at times and sympathetic at others, simply superb. Luana Anders does a good job as his foil Carlotta, she mostly has to react, growing steadily more and more desperate and unhinged herself, not quite as showy a turn but still playing very well of Rooney, rather chilling in her plight. Keenan Wynn is good too as a wino, though he has really to do except shifting the plot and sense of reality for a spell. The technique matches the acting in outlandishness, deploying all manner of unbalanced angles, close ups, speedy edits, colored lenses, strobe lighting, hallucinatory sound design, hazy phantasms, all this piled on relentlessly to disturb the viewer as much as the characters on screen. The terrific art direction (by Larry Cohen) goes well with the directorial flourishes too, all manner of mannequins, both whole and in parts alone, free standing or hanging, and an array of beasts as well. And not surprisingly the score is unusual too, ranging from piano and sawing strings to strange noisy burbles. So altogether its a dense film, by the end almost an exhausting one, and most certainly not to all tastes. But for those interested in the intersection of madness and art, of truly bizarre art-house horror or just of unfettered acting exercises this is most certainly a worthy watch. 8/10

Essentially a two-person stage play with the fatally unhinged former make-up man Rooney recreating his favourite motion pictures on an old, abandoned sound stage using abducted actress Anders as his muse. The film conveys her attempts to escape, and Rooney's lunacy as he flits between vague coherency and outright mania. Larry Cohen's impressive set design is eye-catching, although the music tempo is at times so frantic as to become irritating.

I've read a lot of reviews concerning this movie, and the majority seem to charge it with a contempt normally reserved for those films so pathetic, they even fail on cult status. Sure, it's probably a little too avant garde for the average punter (myself included), and yet, it's strangely compelling with a truly maniacal performance by Rooney. If you'd been accustomed to the Mickey Rooney of the 1940's, then you're in for a shock; his turn is quite raw, maybe somewhat self-indulgent (in showcasing his range), but certainly remarkable.

Anders certainly isn't the acting dwarf some have painted, though her dialogue is scarce by comparison, while the once-ubiquitous Keenan Wynn has a brief but memorable cameo, and there are a host of extras that form Rooney's heyday hallucinations (and who look like a theatrical company) - many of them sans costumes in full-frontal glory just to underline the point that Rooney has totally flipped his switch. I almost fell asleep after just ten or so minutes, but persevered and while not a masterpiece, found the overall result intense if at times uneven and probably unfairly maligned as a turkey.

The Manipulator (1971)

* (out of 4)

B.J. Lang (Mickey Rooney) is a former make-up man who has finally snapped. He kidnaps actress Carlotta (Luana Anders) and holds her hostage so that she can view his bizarre rants and attempts at acting.

THE MANIPULATOR is a really, really awful movie. There are countless awful things about it and in fact there are so many that I'm really shocked that the movie isn't better known by the Bad Cinema Crowd. When I say this film is awful it's probably an understatement because this is mind-numbing bad at times but I must also admit that there's one terrific thing in the film and that's Rooney. He gives such a wonderful performance here that it's really rather sad that it's lost in such a bad movie.

If you go through Rooney's career then you know that he had a major dry spot in it and there's no question that the 1970s really weren't a great decade for the once "A" list actor. He was taking various roles for the money and quite often he would appear in films that paid for a day's work. That's not the case here because he's clearly the star and there's not a frame of the film that doesn't have him in it. This character is truly a crazy, raving and rating nut that gives the actor a great chance to show his range and he does a terrific job with it. It's really a tour-de-force performance that has the actor showing off a variety of ranges and he nails them. Anders is also decent in her role as is Keenan Wynn in his brief part.

With that said, all of the performances are wasted in this horrid mess of a movie. For starters, the direction by Yabo Yablonsky is among the very worst that you're ever going to see because there's absolutely no style here. In fact, there's no comedy, there's no drama, there's no suspense and there's really nothing at all. This is about as ugly and as flat of a movie that you're ever going to see and even the greatness of Rooney's performance pretty much gets sucked dry of any major power because of how poorly it's filmed. Even worse is the fact that the story just never makes a bit of sense as there's nothing going on but rants and performances.

THE MANIPULATOR is a film that should be better seen and known. By those who enjoy bad movies.