It Came from Hollywood

This film still has me rolling whenever I see it. This film not only makes fun of the grade Z stinkers, but in it's on weird way, pays tribute to these films at the same time. The only problem I have with it is the fact that it includes two classic sci-fi films, "The Incredible Shrinking Man" and "War of the Worlds". Other than that this is one funny film, especially Cheech and Chong's look at the anti-drug films like "Reefer Madness" and "High School Confidential".

This isn't as much a movie as it is a loose assembly of B- to Z-grade movies that have been produced between the 1940's and late 1970's (and not only did they come from Hollywood but Japan as well), narrated by numerous "Saturday Night Life"-comedians. We're talking movies like "Mars Needs Women", "Reefer Madness" (who but Cheech and Chong would be more likely to make fun of that one?), "The Incredible Strange Creatures who stopped living and became mixed up Zombies"; indeed, we're talking the works of Edward D. Wood Jrn.

It's nice to see some of your favorite 80's comedians, some which have passed on since (John Candy, Gilda Radner), others which have fallen into obscurity (Dan Akroyd, Cheech and mainly Chong). Granted the gags and jokes are all rather silly, definitely not especially gifted (and considering that this is from 1982 and that we are used to a little sharper, even cynical humor these days, they haven't aged very well), but then again, we're dealing with bottom-of-the-barrel films, hence let's just call them appropriate.

It's also interesting to reflect, 30 years down the road, how many truly awful movies have been produced since then and the path that the industry in general has taken. Movies like "Battlefield Earth" or M. Night Shyamalans "The Last Airbender" (well, actually every Shyamalan picture since "The Sixth Sense") would certainly not be out of place if they ever remade "It Came from Hollywood". However, there is one exception: while "It Came from Hollywood" focuses on films that were generally generated by a shoe-string budget, the more recent cinematic train-wrecks have swallowed millions upon millions of dollars.

Seven from ten points out of sheer curiosity value – wait; make those six points for having included "The Incredible Shrinking Man" and "War of the Worlds".

Several top comedians of the early 1980s (Gilda Radner, Cheech & Chong, John Candy, and Dan Aykrod) host a salmagundi of clips from low budget films, mostly from the 1950s, but some dating as far back as the early talkie era, and a few as recent as the mid-1970s. The clips are tidily compartmented into chapters(monsters, juvenile delinquents, gorillas, etc.), each bookended by a Saturday Night Live type of comedy sketch.

IT CAME FROM HOLLYWOOD is an early entry in the MST3K/RIFFTRAX ambit of pop culture satire, and as such, it has its moments. It doesn't present enough academic insight to qualify as a documentary, however, which may come as a disappointment to some cinephiles, but it did introduce the immortal Edward D. Wood, Jr. Into the mainstream conscience collective(in a manner less celebratory than sneering with schadenfreude). The films selected are all over the board...some are not particularly low quality, and a few are even widely regarded as classics. There was a good idea here, but it lacks the knowledgeable supervision it really needed to succeed. It's also rather dated, existing as a fossil from the time when a certain age bracket looked back with adult eyes at the quaintly naive and repressive America they grew up in with a nostalgic, irreverent snicker.

All things considered, an enjoyable enough misfire saved by the presence of its comedy icons. 5/10.

...for several reasons. For one, a couple of these cast members - actually narrators - left us too soon. That would be John Candy and Gilda Radner. Also, it mixes the comedy styles of SCTV's John Candy, the original Saturday Night Live crew members of Gilda Radner and Dan Akroyd, and Cheech and Chong. This was right before the "Just Say No Era" and Zero Tolerance aged out the latter's style of humor. The 70s were just a more lay back era, even with the shag carpet and the high inflation.

Next, there are all of the B sci-fi and horror movies shown here. This film was made during a bridge era when the old B movies were not being shown that much anymore on TV, and long before youtube and Turner Classic Movies and even the dawn of VHS made them accessible again. And just to let you know, some of these films are not even of the sci-fi/horror genre. Several of them are early sound musicals from the early 1930s, probably even harder to find at the time than the 50s horror films.

And finally, and I think another reviewer even mentioned this in his title, this film was my introduction to Ed Wood Jr. At first I thought it was some kind of a joke. The production code was still in force in the 1950s. How are they going to let you make a film about cross dressing? That was just how B minus Ed Wood's films were. They never even got on the radar of the censors.

It could probably never have a DVD release because of all of the rights of all of the films involved, plus the music. But it is on youtube if you ever want a look back at a look back.

One of the reasons I liked this film so much was because it actually featured Guilala. Dan Aykroyd and John Candy make comments about the best and worst Sci-Fi movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space and other films by Ed Wood. It also features Attack of the Mushroom People and X from Outer Space. I loved it. Recommended to everybody.