Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It.

This is the kind of movies that make me feel good. The kind of movies that makes you say: Man! Me and my friends could have made this one!

Anyway.. it's the greatest hippie-road-trip-movie I have ever laid my eyes on

peace

This is the film that Roger Corman says was his final straw with AIP. After mildly editing WILD ANGELS and THE TRIP, their virtual elimination of "God" and the obliteration of the original ending led him to form New World Pictures.

Seeing this film at the American Cinemateque in a striking new print shows both its virtues as a one-of-a-kind (well, at least for anybody BUT Corman!) oddity as well as a failed attempt at counter-culture comedy. It's hard to see how even the original Director's Cut (if it exists at all) would really be that much of an improvement. What is on the screen is still probably about 90% of what Corman shot, and it's a scattershot affair. The Cinematography and Music stand out, as well as bits of the acting, particularly by Elaine Giftos.

Roger Corman spoke after the Cinemateque screening.

Corman said that he hadn't seen the movie since its release in 1970. It was edited before its theatrical release by AIP. Most significantly was the almost complete elimination of the voice of "God". Corman speculated that since AIP had gone public (stock market) around that time, that they were concerned that the "Jewish comic"-type voice would be considered sacriligious! Then, AIP cut the most elaborate shot in the entire film. The original ending! Elaine Giftos and Robert Corff were to "walk off into the sunset in the most cliched ending possible." This was shot in a big panaroma shot "with marching bands and the whole cast included." Corman said that it STILL bothers him that as released, the film "has no ending."

A gas is let loose upon the world that kills anyone over twenty-five years old.

Coming from Roger Corman, I wanted to like this, but it never seemed coherent and I think not enough thought was put into a plot or story arc. There are things I enjoyed, such as the permit guy with the whip and how this was an alternate version of "Logan's Run" (this film came out after the novel but before the film, so whether or not there was an influence, I have no idea).

There was a problem in that almost no one was under 18. This seemed to be teenagers and young adults cutting loose, but who was watching all the infants?

Roger Corman is undeniably one of the most versatile and unpredictable directors/producers in history. He was single-handedly responsible for some of my favorite horror films ever (like the Edgar Allen Poe adaptations "Masque of the Red Death" and "Pit and the Pendulum") as well as some insufferably cheap and tacky rubbish quickies (like "Creature from the Haunted Sea" and "She Gods of the Shark Reef"). Corman also made a couple of movies that are simply unclassifiable and – simply put – nearly impossible to judge properly. "The Trip", for example, as well as this imaginatively titled "Gas-s-s-s" can somewhat be labeled as psychedelic exploitation. In other words, they're incredibly strange hippie-culture influenced movies. Half of the time you haven't got the slightest idea what's going on, who these characters are that walk back and forth through the screen and where the hell this whole thing is going. The plot is simply and yet highly effective: a strange but deadly nerve gas is accidentally unleashed and promptly annihilates that the entire world population over the age of 25. This *could* be the basic premise of an atmospheric, gritty and nail-bitingly suspenseful post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi landmark, but writer George Armitage and Roger Corman decided to turn it into a "trippy" road-movie comedy. None of the characters is even trying to prevent their inevitable upcoming deaths; they just party out in the streets and found little juvenile crime syndicates. "Gas-s-s-s" is a disappointingly boring and tries overly hard to be bizarre. The entire script appears to be improvised at the spot and not at all funny. Definitely not my cup of tea, but the film does have a loyal fan base and many admirers, so who am I to say that it's not worth your time or money?

Roger Corman's Gas-s-s-s, his final film as director for AIP, is dated (and probably even was for the period it got released), but somehow it's almost part of its charm. It's an irreverent comedy about a noxious gas that wipes out everybody- at least in the US much as we can figure- who's over the age of 25. Party-time! In what appears to be, in the premise, as a slight twist on Corman's own Last Woman on Earth, it's an epic of low-budget proportions, a rampant fiasco of kids in hippie-wear (or not as case turns out) and the Darwinian struggles that take place as the roughnecks, jocks and bikers-on-country-clubs face off against those darn 'commie-anarchists'. Certainly a good premise indeed, at least for those who love the exploitation fare of the period (myself counted, even as I'm from after that era).

While it might be one of Corman's (intentionally) funnier pictures, there's a nagging feeling that something's not totally there. It is cheap, it is slapdash, it's episodic. The problem, as with some of Corman's other movies, is that a little more effort would make something even more interesting. If there was, for example, another snappy and sharp writer alongside George Armitage, who could whip the script into a tight and awesome shape, it could even be one of the great exploitation films. As it stands, it's merely OK overall. Luckily the good tries to outweigh the bad, which is that there are some really, actually clever one-liners ("Hey, we all have our own inconsistencies, that doesn't stop the revolution," to "Drop that chloride, you commie anarchist!") and seeing the biker country-clubbers and the God lightning bolt climax.

Best of all is to see a running-gag in-joke for Corman- probably more than one, actually. The first is more obvious, and laugh-out-loud, which is a biker Edgar Allen Poe, who just shows up here and there like some sage wise-man (who is, of course, not over 25) with his wife and occasional raven on his shoulder spouting garbled quotes. The second is a little more subtle, which seems to be a play on his film the Trip, as in the psychedelic-type scenes (i.e. dancing to Country Joe and the Fish) with the camera zooming in and out fast, lots of hand-held, etc). Corman's gone through this all before, so it has to be questioned: how much of this is tongue in cheek, and how much is just almost shoddy film-making? Can't be sure. At least there was consistent chuckling to be had, especially at seeing a young Bud Cort in a cowboy hat, and, of all people, Talia Shire!