Rat Pfink a Boo Boo

Despite the fact that I missed the first ten minutes of this movie, I was still downright amazed by the sheer absurdity of the plot and the Batman-like fight scenes. I'm not saying this was a bad movie. It was a great movie. It has a certain quality to it that many movies don't... it's an abomination, but you can't tear yourself away from it. The characters are both absurd and captivating at the same time. It's certainly pushing the envelope for the "bad but incredibly amusing" category. And as for the costumes... Boo Boo's hat deserves a review of its own.

I don't think I've ever laughed more in a movie theatre than the first time I saw "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies" (1963) at NYC's Thalia some years back, and have wanted to see Ray Dennis Steckler's legendary 1965 follow-up, "Rat Pfink A Boo Boo," ever since. And the good news is that, to my not-so-great surprise, this turns out to be an extremely entertaining short film in the superhero genre. Filmed on the supercheap for only $20 (as Steckler tells us in an excellent interview on this DVD)--although every penny of that is evident on screen--the picture tells a simple story, in which Cee Bee Beaumont, girlfriend of rock star Lonnie Lord, is tormented and kidnapped by a trio of thugs. Good thing that Lonnie is actually costumed crime fighter Rat Pfink, and that Cee Bee's doofus gardener is actually his cohort Boo Boo, who hop aboard their sidecar motorcycle to rescue her from the villains, as well as an escaped gorilla! The picture features remarkably fine photography and editing, and although there is no synchronized dialogue whatsoever, I was able to quickly adapt, especially when being thrilled by some very frenetic dukeouts and no less than four upbeat rock 'n' roll numbers. The varicolored tinting of the film only enhances the already impressive lensing, and, at a mere 65 minutes or so (not the 90 minutes widely stated), the movie never even begins to wear out its welcome. By turns amusing, suspenseful, exciting and ludicrously funny, "Rat Pfink A Boo Boo" is a worthy successor to filmdom's "first monster musical." And Steckler, in his lengthy interview, proves to be just as bright and funny as his films would lead one to believe. The man has a remarkable memory, and his articulate stories round out this DVD very nicely indeed.

I have to say, I popped "Rat Pfink" in the VCR last night after watching "Blade Runner" for the first time, and I found it a lot more entertaining and fun. Ray Dennis Steckler's bottom-drawer ripoff of "Batman" (it even owes a lot to Jerry Warren's "Wild World of Batwoman") is actually entertaining in that exclusive, so-bad-it's-good way, with cheesy homemade costumes (Rat Pfink looks like a burglar in his ski-mask) and an overlong fight sequence that takes place in what is probably the producer's backyard. The presence of the luminous Carolyn Brandt (Steckler's girlfriend) livens things up nicely; like another reviewer stated, she's not much of an actress, but she's certainly easy on the eyes. Unfortunately, like a lot of the director's other films, "Rat Pfink" is padded out to an insufferable degree, to the point where it almost put me to sleep (but maybe that's a compliment in itself).

5/10

It is difficult to prepare people exactly for what they are going to see, this movie is a class act of its own: Made by the sixties maestro of improvisation, Ray Dennis Steckler, and this is his true masterpiece. It is jawdroppingly hilarious at every turn and totally inept at the same time, but it is FUN. Much better than most self-confessed comedies. Director Steckler, who always worked without a script, started this little monochrome movie as a dark, sinister thriller about 3 thugs harassing and stalking his gorgeous real-life wife, Carolyn Brandt. For reasons unknown he becomes pretty quickly fed up with the thriller, so our two protagonists are rushed in to a closet and stumbles out in Batman and Robin-like attires as the crimefighting duo, Rat Pfink and his assistant Boo Boo. At this point Rat Pfink feels that needs to remind Boo Boo that they have one weakness: Bullets! And then they are ready to rock. Highspeed chases at 20mph follows, speeded up by the oldest movietrick in the world: Fast motion. An incredibly inept fistfight in a backyard ensues, where poor Boo Boo stumbles and falls all over the place and in between all this our hero just whips out a guitar to sing a song for no reason whatsoever and everyone starts dancing. Steckler hijacked a local town parade for his movie, as his sub-shoestring otherwise wouldn't allow for such extravaganza. Time to round up your buddies for a good laugh, the more, the marrier. Like the crows sing in Disney's Dumbo: "I have seen everything, when I see an elephant fly" 9/10

If you've seen Ray Dennis Steckler's cult classic 'The Incredibly Strange Creatures...' and thought it was a silly, unbelievably bad mess, you haven't seen anything yet!! 'Rat Phink a Boo Boo' actually surpasses it! It is even sillier, more incoherent, cheaper and basically makes absolutely NO SENSE at all. At least '..Creatures..' had a semblance of a plot, 'Rat Phink..' doesn't even bother trying! The movie begins like a thriller with the kidnapping of a rock singer's girlfriend by some heavies then... well I won't spoil the experience for you! Let's just say things don't turn out QUITE like you might think...

This is one of the strangest low (and I mean LOW!) budget movies of the 1960s. Watching it is like watching a car crash. You know you should stop looking at some point but you just can't tear your eyes away!

Makes Ed Wood look like Sam Fuller.