Eggshells

Eggshells (1969)

** (out of 4)

Normally I start my reviews off with a brief description of the plot but that's not really needed here because there isn't one. Basically you've got a couples sitting around and talking about various deep topics including war and haunted houses.

EGGSHELLS was Tobe Hooper's first feature film and it's easy to see why it has been forgotten. Usually whenever director's make a name for themselves their early works come back into play but that never happened with EGGSHELLS and it pretty much remained a mystery until here recently when it got a re-release. The film isn't awful. The film certainly isn't great. It's just pretty much in the middle without anything overly interesting in it outside of the film's the director would make after it.

This is one of those films where there's no plot but instead hippies are sitting around talking about "deep" stuff that no one but stoned hippies would find deep. Most of the conversations had here are pretty boring and none of them are interesting enough to really grab your attention and hold it throughout the running time. Just take a look at the discussion of haunted houses and you'll see how silly it actually is and how pointless it is.

The film really drags at spots and especially the final ten-minutes of the movie. I'm going to guess Hooper was trying to deliver some sort of weird acid trip but that doesn't happen and instead of being entertained the viewer will be looking at his watch. EGGSHELLS is technically well-made and it features some nice performances but that's not enough to keep you glued into the film.

this film was a classic hippie film ..........i saw it in Florida at the midnight surf movie theaters. totally unique---- and i have been wondering about it for more than thirty years.

hard to believe this director went on the the chainsaw thing............almost impossible to imagine since the love message of the late 60's was so central to eggshells.

hopefully someone will know how to get a copy.

it's is very satisfying to know that someone else out there remembers this great piece of film and that i just didn't imagine the whole thing.

peace and twang, cg

The other comment says much of what I would have said had I got here first, but I saw Eggshells at the Texas Theater, an "art house" on Guadalupe Street (the "Drag") in Austin across from the UT campus. I wish I could remember for certain when it was, but my best guess is that it was sometime between 1969 and 1971. (Since I was at UT from 1969 to 1976, I suppose that I could have seen it after Chainsaw Massacre came out in 1974, but I have a pretty good reason for thinking that's not right.)

Eggshells wasn't very good, frankly, but I saw the hippie bus with the dome around town several times before and after I saw the movie. After TCM came out I was pleased that I accidentally got to see Hooper's first effort.

One correction: I don't think that the wedding scene was on the Texas State Capitol grounds. I'm pretty sure that it was shot in Wooldridge Park on Guadalupe Street between West 10th and West 9th Streets across the street from the Travis County Courthouse. Perhaps the wedding was at the capitol and I've forgotten it, but if so then some other scene was shot at Wooldridge, since there's an easily-recognizable gazebo in Wooldridge that can be seen in the film.

The Wedding was performed in the Park by Rabbi Clyde T. "Mickey" Sills. As a student, I remember him giving a sermon about the wedding scene at the Hillel. He was a wonderful story teller and was one of the 16 Rabbis arrested in 1964 with Martin Luther King In St Augustine, Florida for Swimming in a pool with blacks. The sheriff poured acid into the pool.

In any event, he gave a wonderful sermon in about 1969 about performing a wedding next to the Courthouse which must have also housed the jail. As I recall, it was about creating a joyful and solemn occasion in the park under the Wedding Canopy (Huppah) while the prisoners were entertaining themselves heckling the wedding.

Woolridge Park is located between W 9th Street and W 10th Street on the West Side of Guadalupe St. The Travis County Courthouse address is 1000 Guadalupe Street. The current "high rise" county jail is adjacent to the county courthouse. The address is 509 W. 11th. I believe that it moved there after the movie was filmed.

Rabbi Sills now leads a Congregation in Oregon.

I recently saw this at London's Frightfest, and it may well be the dullest film I have ever had the misfortune to view there. From one rambling, pointless conversation to the next, nothing of interest happens, apart from a guy having a sword-fight with himself. There may be some who would say that if you didn't like it, you probably didn't understand it, like it's the "emperors new movie", or something. These hypothetical people can get lost. I can't imagine that fully comprehending the film would make it any less dull. I didn't want to understand the presence in the basement, I just wanted it to do something. The film is really only of interest to Tobe Hooper fans, and people who like artsy sixties movies. By the way, I did ask Tobe Hooper what the meaning behind the title was, and he said it just meant "a very delicate situation".