Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: A Bucket of Blood

Hideous and eloquent! In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Seth Nicholas Johnson of Rusty Needle's Record Club returns to Weirdhouse Cinema to discuss Roger Corman's 1959 Beatnik horror comedy "A Bucket of Blood," starring Dick Miller. (originally published 1/5/2024)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb,
and I know some of you are wondering, Hey, it's
a Friday, why are we doing a rewind episode? Or
you might be wondering, hey, didn't you say you were
going to do the one hundred and ninety ninth Weird
House Cinema selection today and it was going to be
the glorious virtual reality film from nineteen ninety five, Virtuosity. Well,

(00:27):
we've had some technical issues pop up and we're going
to have to delay that episode until next week, so
you have a little more time to watch Virtuosity ahead
of our episode. In the meantime, we're going to unleash
an episode from the vault here. This is going to
be our twenty twenty four episode on a Bucket of
Blood Seth Nicholas Johnson joined me on this recording to

(00:51):
discuss this excellent nineteen fifty nine Roger Corman beat Nick
horror comedy. Let's jump right in.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
My co host Joe was out on holiday leave at
the time. Of this recording, so I turned a former
Weird House guest host and former producer on the show,
Seth Nicholas Johnson of the podcast Rusty Needles Record Club, Seth,
welcome back.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Thank you for having me, happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Before we get into the movie and the movie selection here,
what have you been up to on Rusty Needles Record Club.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, I believe just yesterday we recorded our Best Albums
of twenty twenty three list, which is always fun. Not
only do I enjoy making that list every year, but
I also enjoy hearing everyone else's lists, like my co
host Scott's. When he was making his list, I gotta say,
despite the absolutely absurd amount of music that I consume

(01:57):
every year, and how all of my spare money goes
into listening to music and going to concerts and all
that stuff, I still hadn't heard probably two thirds of
his top ten list, which is amazing to me because
we're close friends with very similar taste in music, and
yet there's just so much wonderful music in the world
that I love this time of year, the Decembers and Januaries,

(02:19):
and you get to catch up on everyone's favorites of
the year. List, you're pretty much guaranteed gold from everyone.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess when you fill your
life with music, there are so many different corners of
your life. You have different musical tastes occupying, and yet
not all of them are gonna come up in conversation,
even with close collaborators or friends. You know, there's gonna
be some hidden gems in there as.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, exactly. So, yeah, it's a great time for music,
and yeah it's a fun show if there are any
music fans in the audience.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
All right, Well, the movie for this week is a
nineteen fifty nine Roger Korman directed and of course produced
beat Nick horror comedy, know, I guess, a black comedy
if you will, titled A Bucket of Blood starring Dick Miller.
This was your pick, Seth, This was not one that
was really on my radar. How do you zero in

(03:11):
on this one? What's your history with the film?

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Well, basically, I have a real love for what's known
as gray market DVDs. They're not quite black market DVDs.
They are legal, but just barely. You know, those kind
the kinds of things you find in a store or
online called like drive in Cult Classics thirty two movie
collection or the Classic Sci Fi Ultimate Collection Volume two.

(03:36):
So if it was Ultimate, I'm not sure why there's
a volume two, but hey, the Tales of Terror two
hundred Classic horror movies. Like I buy these collections often ultimately,
just because I'm a big fan of creativity overcraft. And
when I'm watching let's call it a typical Hollywood film,
it usually follows the same beats and has the same structure,

(03:57):
and it's just not very interesting to me because you
can predict where everything's gonna go, and it's whatever. It's boring.
So by just taking a step outside of that blueprint
for filmmaking, you end up in some weird corners. And
even if it's a bad movie, as long as it's interesting,
that's kind of enough for me. So by going down
the B movie routes, that's at least my reasoning for

(04:19):
why I love B movies and old movies and bad
movies is that you can't really predict where it's going,
which makes them far more interesting than the typical Hollywood
film these days. And uh yeah, yeah, so that's why
I went down that route. And then in one of
these collections, I actually dug through my DVDs and I
found the exact disc where I discovered this. This was

(04:41):
called Horror Classics and then it has the title here
four movies over four hours.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Well, that's reasonably cut down because I was thinking one
of the things about these, especially DVD releases, and they're
still putting them mount and some of them are, you know,
are very nice, and some of them are higher budget affairs.
But yeah, sometimes it's like four movies, and to your point,
other times it's like fifty movies. Yes, and you can
sort of do the algebra in your head. It's like, Okay,
the quality of those four films is now spread out

(05:12):
over like fifty titles. Here're going to be a number
of neglected films and forgotten films in this lot.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Well, for example, here's what's on this disc which I
was looking at the dates on it, and I purchased
this in two thousand and three from Platinum Disc Corporation
from Lacrosse, Wisconsin. So that's fun. But here's what was
on this disc. Horror Hotel, A Bucket of Blood, the
Devil's Hand, and I Bury the Living. I've actually seen

(05:40):
all four of those and they're actually not bad. But
I think that's the point though, is that usually when
you're watching these, it's a real roll of the dice
what the quality is going to be, because the reason
why people put out these gray market DVDs is because
it costs them very little. Either these are public domain
films or films that have just like the lowest licensing
fees ever, and so it's just a cheap way for

(06:02):
someone to make a quick buck, so they just you know,
I think shovel wear is a term for it when
it's applied to video games, but it's just it's nothing.
It's cheap nothing. So usually it's garbage. And every once
in a while you find a gem, and this a
Bucket of Blood is one of those very rare gems
in these piles of public domain and low licensing fees

(06:26):
movies on these gray market DVDs. And when I saw
it the first time, I immediately knew that it was
just a cut above the rest, and that it was
a movie that I was going to share with people
and show to people. And I think, more to the point,
I am an art school kid, you know, my college
degrees and the fine arts and all that kind of stuff.
So when I see things like beat nicks and cafes

(06:48):
and gallery showings and all those things. It just feels
very at home to me, and the lampooning of it
feels very direct and personal in a charming and fun way.
So I think that's another reason why I latch onto
it so directly.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, I mean, there's an authenticity to this film, right,
it feels like it's commenting on actual people and culture.
Sometimes the films of this caliber have that feeling of
like having been written by an alien, acted by aliens,
Like this is just a rough approximation of what human
beings are like. But there's real humanity in this even

(07:26):
though at the same time, of course it is a
horror film, horror comedy, a satire. It's not attempting to
adhere very closely to the contours of life, but it's
commenting on those contours for sure.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
And some of those comments are still pretty valid. So, like,
this movie was made in the nineteen or sorry, late
nineteen fifties, I think it's fifty nine, and there's one
joke in here in particular where I was like, yeah,
that still hits home. It was all the beatniks were
like waking up and they're like flop house and they're
all sitting around to breakfast, and our protagonist walks in
and the head beatnik offers him breakfas And I wrote

(08:01):
this down because I loved it so much. He offers
him soy and wheat, germ pancakes or go. He pronounces
it organic, but it's organic organic guava nectar, calcium lactate
and tomato juice and gorbonzo omelets sprinkled with smoked yeast.
And I thought to myself, that's one hundred percent a

(08:21):
meal I run into in my little vegan cafes that
I go to. Like like, no over exaggeration, no like
playing it up for giggles. That's a real meal that
I have eaten in a standard typical twenty twenty three
or I guess twenty twenty four now vegan cafe.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. I was excited when I realized this
was going to be a beatnik movie because I was
recently reflecting to sort of, you know, casually want doing
something else, like around the house or something that I
don't think Weird House Cinema had featured a proper beatnik movie,
and this is a perfect one. Yeah, yeah, it hits
all the right notes, and there's not a note like.

(09:01):
It's not just casually beaten it. It's not like, Okay,
we kill a couple of beat Nicks off in the
first couple of minutes. It's devoted to commenting on beatnik culture,
right right for sure. Now, for anyone out there you're
not familiar with the term beatnik or you're only loosely
familiar with it. Roughly speaking, these were members of the
beat generation and more specifically followers of kind of an
anti materialistic bohemian lifestyle. You know, to varying degrees that

(09:23):
people are aligned with any given social movement. This would
have been the late fifties, early sixties, you know. Icons
like Alan Ginsberg are generally associated with this scene. They
were pre hippies, though many of them would go on
to become hippies.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
It's also I love when the mainstream bastardizes subcultures. I
find it so funny every single time a lot of
eighties films when they're trying to identify and focus on
the punk scene, hilarious hippies. Yeah, yeah, Honestly, it's all
of the subcultures. Whenever the mainstream focuses on a subculture,

(09:57):
whether it be rave kids in their early two thousand anything, anything,
It's always ridiculous and always fun. Hackers, the film Hackers was.
It was a great version of that. They're all good.
Any any mainstream version of a subculture is lampoon worthy
in itself, and this is one of them for sure.
But I think they're they're pretty accurate.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, yeah, you always always paying with a broad brush.
But given that they get to devote the whole film
to Beatnicks, you have like these different caricatures of Beatninks.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Very true.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Now you mentioned the different subcultures across different decades. You know,
especially given that this film ultimately has a has a
simplistic but effective format, you know, you could easily apply
it to a different subculture like every decade, or even
every five years. And indeed, there's at least one seemingly
bad remake of this film from nineteen ninety five that

(10:52):
updates it for like gen X hipsters instead of Beatnicks.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
I've seen it. I've seen. Yeah. The main reason I
watched it is, I believe years ago I was on
like IMDb trivia or something for this movie Bucket of Blood,
and while I was there, one of the Pieces of
Trivia was like, Will Ferrell plays a bit part in
the remake of this film, and so I had to
hunt it down and see it just to see what

(11:18):
it was like. Because one of the things this movie,
A Bucket of Blood, is clearly lacking as a budget,
Like it's clearly like a bottom of the barrel Roger Korman.
We have twelve dollars and five days, let's just make
a movie. And so because of that, you know, it
suffers from the things that do suffer without a budget.
But then I watched the remake, and I think if

(11:40):
I remember correctly, I may not. I think it was
a Showtime original movie, like Movie of the Week kind
of thing. So it still had a rock bottom budget,
and it was not improved with an increased budget, because
I don't believe they actually increased the budgets. And so
I think the original is all you need.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, yeah, The remake has Anthony Michael Hall, and I
think David Cross also shows up in it at some point,
but I have not seen it. I just watched a
clip of it and that was all I need.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yes, Yes, that's correct, that's correct. If you're going to
watch one, I recommend the original.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
All right, Well, let's go ahead and listen to a
little bit of the trailer audio on this one, so
folks can get a taste of what we're going to
be talking about here.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
The artist, the poet, the figure muddle who loves to
show it.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Do you suppose he could be physically attracted to No man,
he ain't the type.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
You don't get enough vitamin e. All these are beat
All these you'll meat him a bucket of blood. Let
us make the see crazy. Don't enjoy yourself where the hilarious,
enjoy the horrifying in a bucket of blood. Now you're

(13:11):
gonna shoot me, don't chir Come to the land of
living dreams, where realists dream of the unreal water. You've
done something to me, something deep down inside of my praana.
Oh what I want to be with you, Your creative

(13:32):
beat nicks at their bodiest, the creative urge at its
most primitive. IM deeply moved, And I shall compose a poem.
Love is art, Art is love. It's the weirdest and
the wildest.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
I don't want to make statues anymore.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
I want to get married to you.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
All right, Well, if you want to go out and
watch this film before we discuss it anymore here and
get into some spoilers and so forth. Well, luckily you
don't have to go and get that bargain bin four
to fifty forgotten horror films because it's widely available digitally.
I watched this one on Prime and the film Detective

(14:33):
Studio put out a very nice blu ray of the
picture if you want to go physical media on it,
So you got plenty of options.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
For sure, it's public domain, so you can find it
on YouTube, you can find it, you know, playing at
a gas station, pump, anywhere anywhere. Really that there's a screen.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
That would be great. I wish they showed movies like
this gas station.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
They should. You know, there's a couple of really good
restaurants where they'll do that just project public domain old films,
like on the walls while you eat. There was a
Burger place in Atlanta that did that that I really like.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, I know the place. All right. Let's get into
the people involved in this film. We mentioned already that
this is Roger Corman picture directed and produced Corman of course,
towering name in American bet cinema, and this is a
film that's often mentioned in highlights of his directorial output.
Even though I never it wasn't really on my radar.

(15:21):
I think it was probably because it had kind of
has this grotesque title bucket of Blood, that puts a
lot of ideas into your head. And I do have
to stress there is no bucket of blood that I remember.
There's maybe a pan of blood, but it's not always
filled up. No, Yeah, it's not nearly as grizzly as
it implies. Obviously, you know, they're trying to get the

(15:43):
teens into the drive in here.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
This is perhaps a movie title first situation, and perhaps
even a poster first. Did you see the poster for this? Yeah,
it's wonderful. It's like a page out of Mad magazine.
It's ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
Yeah, but it clearly doesn't have a monster, so that
might have been a And then I never really was
drawn into it before, just because it was it was
clearly not a monster film. It's talking about a bucket
of blood. And I ended up moving on to the
next thing. And there are a lot of things to
move on to in Roger Corman's filmography, but yeah, this
one stands out because it's actually, you know, a darkly
satirical horror comedy, and it kicks off a loose trilogy

(16:19):
of Corman directed in Charles B. Griffith's scripted black comedies. Again,
this was fifty nine A Bucket of Blood, followed up
by nineteen sixties The Little Shop of Horror, which I
think everyone is familiar with to some degree or another,
and then nineteen sixty one's Creature from the Haunted Sea.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
All classics, all wonderful films.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Excellent. Yeah, I haven't seen Creature from the Haunted Sea,
but now now I'm interested to check it out.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
I mean Roger Corman, I mean, I don't think he's underrated,
but perhaps people think of him mostly as someone who
had a lot of content, But he also had a
lot of quality. I have to say, like I think
think for his limitations in budget and time, he made
amazing pieces for what resources he had. If he had

(17:08):
more resources, actually who knows. Maybe he worked well under pressure,
But for the amount of money that he worked with
and the amount of time that he spent on them,
they're actually remarkable films.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Oh yeah, I mean, just just discussing films that have
been covered on Weird House in the past, that Joe
and I've talked about like nineteen fifty seven's Not of
This Earth very cheap, but the fact that the movie
is so cheap and you can still find things to
talk about, that there's still things that stand out and
are memorable and demand bad remakes decades later. It's commendable.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, And that you want to rewatch them and you
want to share them with your friends. That's really telling
when you when you just finished watching one hundred and
ninety nine other bad horror movies.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Yeah, and then you know, a film like nineteen sixty
four's Mask of the Red Death, you get to see
what Corman was capable of when he did have a
bigger budget backing him up right and did go for
like a stylistic picture.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
That's a great example. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
This picture though, is again nineteen fifty nine. It's coming
on the heels. I think five different pictures that he
directed in the previous year in fifty eight, including Teenage Caveman,
and eight pictures from fifty seven, including Not of This
Earth and Attack of the Crab Monsters. So he's kind
of entering a new dimension here. You know, he directed
a lot of different things. We think of him, you know,

(18:26):
in terms of monster films, but he did westerns, he
did crime, he did dramas, and of course he did
black comedies and satires as we see in this picture.
Now the screenwriter again as Charles B. Griffith, who of
nineteen thirty through two thousand and seven American screenwriter, best
known for his work with Corman, which also included some acting.

(18:47):
And you know, as is often the case in the
Corman camp, you know, it's like you're just called on
to do different things. He worked on such films as
Not of This Earth from fifty six Attack of the
Crab Monsters fifty seven The Little Shop of Hers. He
also directed six films, including fifty nine Forbidden Island, seventy
nine's Up from the Depths in nineteen eighty nine's Wizards
of the Lost Kingdom too.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
I actually like that one. That one's an MST three
K one, and I like that one quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Oh yeah, I haven't.

Speaker 5 (19:14):
I haven't watched that MST three K episode yet, but
yeah's I want to say, that's perhaps the second Netflix
season perhaps, And yeah, that was actually a good one.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
I like that one.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
This has some sort of crazy lion creature or something
in the sky.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
I want to say that sounds about right. That sounds
about right. Mostly it was that kind of like comedic
relief and small child traveling across medieval Europe kind of situation.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah, yeah, all right, getting into the cast here, this
film is all about Walter Paisley, and we're gonna have
a lot to say about the character of Walter Paisley
as we proceed here. But Walter Paisle was played by

(20:01):
the great Dick Miller, who lived nineteen twenty eight through
twenty nineteen. We've talked about him before on Weird House
cinema legendary character actor from the Bronx who made his
way to California in the mid fifties. He's trying to
make it, go at it as a writer, but then
he meets Roger Corman. Roger Corman didn't need writers, he
needed actors, so he started using him on pictures as
early as nineteen fifty five as apache Woman, in which

(20:23):
I believe he plays two different Dick parts. So it's like,
get in there, Dick, we need you in the background
here and okay, now wipe the makeup off. We need
you in this scene as well. And from that point
on he ends up showing up in other Corman pictures
such as Not of This Earth and he Not of
This Earth is a great example where he comes in.
He brings a lot of energy and creativity to the role.

(20:45):
I think he had libs some stuff. He takes something
that could just be a thankless, little extra role, this
guy's it's going to be killed by the alien menace
and makes it something memorable. And so it's no surprise
that Corman finally casts him in the lead. He cast
him in the lead in a crime drama titled Rock
all Night, and this kicks off a whole string of
roles in Corman pictures. It becomes an icon of genre cinema,

(21:09):
popping up later on in memorable roles in such pictures
as Grimlins, The Tales from the Crypt, Demon Knight, the Terminator.
Of course, he has that great small role as the
guy that's running the gun shop that the Terminator goes into.
So wherever he pops up, he's always a treat. And
while many film goers I think tend to associate him
with kind of snappy working man roles, you know, like

(21:30):
a terminator, just what you see here, Pal Bucket of
Blood casts him as a likable but ultimately dim witted,
outcast who desperately wants to belong. So if you're not
used to seeing him outside of those sort of working
man roles, you might be a little surprised at the
ultimately the depth that they get into here with this character.

(21:50):
It's also the first of several characters named Walter Paisley
that he ends up playing, right.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
I was going through his IMDb recently because this is
something that I had heard but never really paid much
attention to, And yeah, I found about a dozen other
times he played someone named either Walter Paisley, Walter Walt
or something Paisley.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
Like.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
I saw these two cop films he was in where
he played like Sergeant Paisley back to back, and yeah,
it seems like that was that. I have to assume
that it's everyone paying homage back to this film, but
I guess it could also be that there was some
sort of inside joke where that's something happened even pre

(22:31):
this film with the name Walter Paisley, and even this
film is homage to some other inside joke about the
name Walter Paisley. But at least in cinema on screen,
this is the birth of the name Walter Paisley that
he then played that. I guess just the name because
it can't be the same role because again and again
and again, all the different Waltz and Walter's and Walter

(22:51):
Paisley's he plays, like, for example, the garbage man in
the Burbs. I believe that's a Walter Paisley. I may
be getting this one wrong, but so he kept working
with Joe Dante over and over. Joe Dante loved to
put him in any movie he ever did. I think
the show Let's see It was called Erie Indiana, and

(23:14):
I believe his role was in that episode. He would
sneak around and whenever someone loses something, like they lose
a sock in the dryer, they lose the capital, their pen, whatever,
it's because Walter Paisley is sneaking up and stealing it.
Because it's a big part about like the American economy
where they need to ensure that people are still buying
new things. So Walter Paisley is sneaking around and stealing

(23:38):
people's belongings when they think that they lose them. Really remarkable. Oh,
I bring that up because Joe Dante produced that series.
That's the connection there.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, Okay, I remember Erie Indiana. I remember liking it,
but I haven't really revisited it since it originally aired.

Speaker 3 (23:53):
Yeah, it was like X Files for kids, with definitely
some like Twilight Zone for kids mixed in there. It
was a fun series.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah, yeah, all right, Well, yeah, Dick Miller the star
of this picture, and I think it's a pretty solid performance.
He's awkward and likable in the early goings, not just
socially awkward, but like physically bumbling in a very effective manner.
Like there's an early scene where he is frustrated he
goes to kick like a milk carton on the street
and falls. It's great.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
No, he's very believable, and especially when you compare him
to like you said, his more like workman type characters
later where he's kind of like gruff and you know
what was he in chopping mall and I remember now correctly.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Yeah, it was a janitor who gets murdered by the robots.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Exactly like that, that kind of role. I think most
people associate him with just kind of like that, like
grumpy old man and part of the body counts basically,
But yeah, no, this is a true character. It's it's
quite good.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Yeah, And eventually this is a character that darkens somewhat.
It is titled a Bucket of Blood, and he's able
to push that portrayal to the dark side a bit
as well, you know, not to the degree that somebody
who specializes in that sort of thing. But then that
sort of actor wouldn't be necessarily be able to manage
the lovable and likable aspects of the character as well.
I mean, you know it would it would take a

(25:10):
special actor to really nail both of those, and I
think Dick Miller does a pretty darn good job here
for sure, all right. Other members of the cast, Carla
is the only beat Nick in the film that is
nice to him early on, and as such, this is
the woman of his dreams. She's played by Barbara Morris,
who lived nineteen thirty two. From nineteen seventy five, she

(25:31):
appeared in several Corman films, beginning in fifty seven with
a trio that included Rock All Night. She's also in
fifty eight Teenage Caveman. She's in fifty nine's The Wasp Woman,
and later on she appeared in Corman's nineteen sixty seven
LSD movie The Trip, which is pretty amusing. That's the
Dennis Hopper and his crew. Bruce dern is in it
as a guy that's here to guide you on your trip.

(25:54):
And then she pops up in nineteen seventies The Dune,
which horror one of her final roles. That's a film
that's been covered on Weird House as well. Not much
to say here, she's a likable, effective performance. Absolutely, Okay,
then we have we should mention that the central setting
for the whole picture is the beat Nick bar. I
guess it's more of a coffee shop type of situation,

(26:17):
coffee house beat Nick coffee house called the Yellow Door.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, it's kind of like that that typical coffee house
that you picture in your mind. Where has it a
little stage for like an open mic night type situation.
It's got you know, locals art hanging around the walls.
It's it's that general purpose local art scene.

Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's interesting that it's it's presented.
It's it's presented well, you believe that this is a
real place, but it's presented seemingly simultaneously, like from an
inward view as well as an outside view, because it
feels authentic. But then also there's this whole element of
like not one but two undercover cops have been assigned

(26:58):
to this place to track of the Beatnick heroin trade.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
And going like twenty four hours, we see them like
trade off, you know, Yeah, my shift's done, your turn?

Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, there was there really that much heroin action going
on at your average like you know, small coffee house
in the late fifties. I don't know, but anyway, the
guy that runs the place is this character. Leonard decentis
played by Anthony Carbutten, who lived nineteen twenty five through
twenty twenty the immoral owner operator of the Beatnick coffee

(27:30):
house here. He appeared in various TV and film projects,
including several Corman pictures. He pops up in sixty one's
The Pit and the Pendulum, which of course stars Vincent Price.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Those were such great films. I love that run of
all the Poe films. Oh that's so funny.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, so I really like him in this picture, I think,
you know. So he's initially just another Beatnick jerk who
doesn't give Walter a chance. He's also Walter's boss, and
he's of course a mean boss who tells Walter he
has to do his job and so forth, quit staring
into the stars, quit talking to the customers. But he
ultimately becomes like the one person who knows the terrible

(28:09):
truth about what's going on, and he has to wrestle
with that, and we'll get into how he wrestles with
it and what sort of choices he makes based on
that knowledge.

Speaker 3 (28:19):
It's fun as an audience that we can see his
motivation very clearly, but no one else can. Fun.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
All right, We also have Ed Nelson popping up in
this one. Ed Nelson lived nineteen twenty eight through twenty fourteen.
He was the star of fifty eights The Brain Eaters,
which we've talked about on We Your House before. He
was a frequent Corman actor. In this he plays one
of those two undercover cops, Art Lacroix. And I'm not
sure what flavor Lacroix he would be, because he'd be

(28:50):
one of the less drinkable flavors. I think, you know,
because he has a very rough exterior. He's at first
you think he's like the sleazier of the beat Nicks,
and then you realize, oh, he's an undercover cop.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
And he is dressed like an undercover cop, like a
big goofy hat a fur jackets like he's He's definitely like, hello,
fellow kids, I'm.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
Here, all right. So we have a lot of beat
Nicks hanging out in there, and we do have kind
of like a lead beat Nick, your your head beat Nick.
This is the poet Maxwell, played by Julian Burton of
the nineteen thirty two through two thousand and six, mostly
a TV actor, perhaps best known for this film. Yeah.
He's the lead pompous beat Nick poet and ultimately the

(29:30):
taste maker at the Yellow Door. If he says something
is good, it is good and everyone falls in line.
I thought this character was a constant delight. He does
a lot of poetry performances, either officially or sort of
unofficially off mic because it's also just how he speaks
to everyone, and it ultimately plays an essential role in
both the plot and also just sort of the texture
of the film.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
It's it's note perfect, pitch perfect for someone who is
both very pompous and yet like not phony, like he
does kind of back up what he's say. He's just
like a typical blow hard artist that really really buys
into their own their own scene and their own message
and their own intentions, and it's it's perfect, it's perfect.

(30:12):
I've met dozens of men just like Maxwell for sure.

Speaker 1 (30:16):
And of course there's a hypocrisy to him as well, as.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
We'll get out, of course, because that is a part
of art, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
All right. Moving on to the art direction on this film,
it's worth pointing out because it's Daniel Holler born nineteen
twenty nine. He's come up on the show before because
he went on to direct nineteen seventies The Dunwich Horror
and he also did production design on Mask of the
Red Death, so he worked with Corman a lot and
went on to went on to direct a number of

(30:45):
pictures as well.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
I don't want to give away probably what he spent
most of his time and money on, but yeah, you
can tell well, I bet most of his time went
into but we'll talk about that later.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Because he couldn't take the same shortcuts that Walter did. Right,
Very true, very true, all right. Music wise, the score
is attributed to Fred Katz, who of nineteen nineteen through
twenty thirteen, and fittingly, there's a lot of a lot
of sacks, a lot of delirious beatnicked sacks that you've
heard and if you watch the films of this caliber,
you've heard it before. You know, the Sacks is drizzling.

(31:21):
There's like implied or overt drug use. It is supposed
to be the soundtrack of getting high in the late fifties.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
And we have matching Stoner characters. We just really convey
that really lets you know what's happening behind the scenes
right here. But the Hayes coat is stopping them from
overtly telling you.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
I was, yeah, you're referring to there's a there's a duo,
like the comedic duo of Stoner's. And I was constantly
floored by the humor because I it was not connecting
with me, And I wasn't sure how much of it is,
like the cultural distance, how much of it is like
the fact that they had to be a little careful
in how they they treated this humor, because you know,

(32:01):
they're supposed to be high all the time and they're
sort of drifting in and out of the room, blasted
out of their skulls. But I found very little that
they did was actually like overtly funny. I felt like
I was missing the joke.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
I mean, they were definitely the Beavis and Butt Head
of the fifties or perhaps the Cheech and Chong of
the nineteen fifties, and yeah, all of their slang and
goofiness never really did much for me. But I did
notice one point that I was like, oh, that's clearly
a joke that they're making, which was like someone said
something and then one of the stoner beat nick says, oh,

(32:33):
what did he say so? And the other one goes,
didn't you hear him? He's like, nah, I'm too far out.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Ah. Oh yeah, that's good.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
That's good of course.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Hours now, one final note on the saxophone music, though
the credited SAXOPHONEI ist here and we see him on
screen is Grammy nominated Paul Horn, who lived nineteen thirty
through twenty fourteen. Were you familiar with Paul Horn.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Only by name? I can't say I'm too familiar with
specific saxophone jazz.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Yeah, I wasn't either, But this guy apparently was a
pretty big deal. He went on to become a pretty
big deal. He got into the early New Age music scene,
particularly with a nineteen sixty nine album called Inside. Sometimes.
I think it's on like Spotify as Inside the taj
Mahll because it was apparently recorded inside the taj Mahll
and I was listening to part of it before we

(33:25):
came in to record this, and it's pretty good stuff.
It's like it's got that thing soothing, you know, very
obviously inspired by traditional Indian music and utilizing traditional Indian instruments.
But yeah, it's quite good. And apparently it was a
big hit in like the new age scene, and he
went on to doing albums for what is it Wyndham Hill,

(33:46):
you know, the big new age music label of the day.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
I mean it matches this movie perfectly. It's a lone
saxophone wailing into the night is the sound of like
open mic nights at at a little coffee shop. So yeah, no,
it's perfect for this beatnik styled film.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Well, let's let's get into the plot a little bit. Now,
this is not one that we're going to necessarily do
like a blow by blow or beat by beat if
you will, if you want to get cheeky, you account
of what happens, and then to a certain extent, we
don't have to go beat by beat because the formula
you can pretty much guess at everything once we lay
out the initial steps.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
I mean, it's basically five chunks of escalation, escalates one
after the other after the other, both in severity and
I suppose in motivation, but I suppose we should tell
the people what we're talking about before we start getting into
those five steps.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah. So again, it's the late fifties. You've got this
beatnik hang, You've got this this coffee house. There's a
lot of poetry going on, visual arts, obviously smoking, and
also obviously some drug use going on. They're very clear
about that. The police are interested in this in this

(35:00):
place for that very reason. And you see, you know,
the typical interactions between you know, we have the you know,
the tastemaker Maxwell, and we have his hangers on. We
have the stoner duo, who are not artists and barely
seem to know really what's going on in their immediate vicinity,
but you know, they're they're there, they're there to hang out,
they're part of the scene. And in the midst of

(35:22):
all of this we have we have Walter Uh And
Walter just works at the coffee shop. He's going around
like busting the tables and so forth, bringing coffee out
to folks, but he's constantly distracted because he is ultimately
even though he works here, he is an outsider to
the actual scene. Uh. He is a loner. He desperately
wants to belong somewhere, and this is the primary culture

(35:45):
that he is apparently exposed to. So he wants to
be a part of what he sees here, and he
sees that the main thing he needs to do is
he needs to become an artist.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
And yeah, I think most people become artists in real
life because they have affinity for it or perhaps some
sort of innate talent. Walter, as we see, doesn't really
have either of those things. It's like you said, it's
just logically he wants to be a part of this
social group, and the way to do that is to
be a popular artist amongst this social group.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, Unfortunately they're not they're not looking to let anybody in.
Certainly they're not looking to let him in. They're very
that everyone, with the exception of Clara, are pretty pretty
clear on this right that that he does not belong.
He's only here to pick up the coffee mugs and
so forth. So that's part of it. But he doesn't

(36:39):
seem to be drawn to the creative side of art
so much. He's drawn to the prospect of social belonging
and ultimately fame. But he doesn't put the time in,
and perhaps part of that is he doesn't know how
to put the time in. You know, he's he's I
guess exposed to this like very poetic vision of what
creativity is that Maxwell is spouting the idea that, like,

(37:01):
you know, creativity is just something that like the artist
breathes in and out, and it's not implied that it's
something that imployed, that takes work and dedication, that you
may fail at a lot before you get somewhere. And
so he also doesn't know how to fail. He doesn't
know how to set goes. He doesn't have any of
these tools, and he's also probably you know, supposed to

(37:22):
be picking up a lot of additional myths about creativity.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
Yeah, we'll see this a little bit later when we
watch him attempting to make art on his own early on,
where he's trying to sculpt a bust of Karla, the
woman who's nice to him, and while he's doing it,
you can just see his anger and like he's trying
to like punch at it and jab at it. He's
like pianos, pian knows and he doesn't know, he doesn't

(37:47):
know how to actually do these things. He isn't going
through the steps. He just wants instantaneously, like he said,
to like breathe out the art and it exists.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, he's hitting that. I've heard it called the creative
cliff and and I. And it's interesting because I think
you know everyone out there, you know, myself included, I'm
sure you've had this experience. We've all had those b
and O's moments of the things we're working on where
you just you you can't do make the thing happen,
and and it's frustrating, and ultimately you know you have

(38:17):
to you have to stop, you have to come back.
But but again, he hasn't been trained any of that.
He hasn't been told any of that. He hasn't been
picking up on a culture that that that that that
that says that that is a part of the the
of being a creative person and engaging in creative endeavors.
So he just gets super frustrated, uh and and doesn't
know how to move forward.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
Poor guy.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, but we have to stress that he is at
least initially a very likable guy. He's you know, he's
he's supposed to be a bit dim witted. He's supposed
to still, you know, be a nice guy. He wants
to make friends. Nobody else is letting him in or
giving him a chance except maybe Carla, and uh yeah.

(38:58):
At the same time, all he's exposed to is this
culture of there is only art. You know. Maxwell's constantly
talking about this in his poetry, like nothing else has
value except art. Everything else serves art. And these are
the ideas that take on literal weight and end up
festering in his increasingly troubled mind.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
If he had just grown up in a different neighborhood,
maybe this entire movie would be aimed to him wanting
to become a baseball player or wanting to become a chef.
It was just, you know, this happened to be the
scene that he was in, and so this is what
he needed to do.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Oh and the chef is a great idea, because there's
your instant template for a cannibal movie. Yes, yeah, different
Walter Paisley wants to be a fine chef, doesn't have
the skills and ends up committing murder and cannibalism.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
I can, and I bet I have seen that film.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
So yeah, let's get to the point, because he's trying
to create. He wants to create, and he's failing. He
can't make a nose does not manifest out of the clay. Meanwhile,
the landlady, the nice but also nosy land lady, who
gets checking in on him, has a cat, a beloved
cat that has somehow climbed into the wall, and he's

(40:11):
got several things going and frustrated with the art, he's
trying to cook some sort of dinner, and then it's
clear that the cat is stuck in the wall, so
he does what a rational person does. He decides to
stab the wall to free the cat, and of course
murders the cat in the process.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
Yeah, it's important to keep this in mind. The first
death was not human, and the first death was an accident.
I think it's also very important that something you'll read
a lot in oh, how to write a screenplay, movies
or books and things like that, where it'll be like,
the save the cat moment is something that gets brought

(40:47):
up often. You can look at the movie Alien for example,
et cetera, et cetera, And yeah, saving the cat is
a big thing for a protagonist to do, to show
that they are likable, and that they are caring and
empathetic towards other creatures, et cetera, et cetera. This is
the opposite. We start our film with killing a cat accidentally.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, he's trying to save it. He's trying to do right.
But if the hideous fumble, the cat doesn't suffer mine
just not too grotesque or anything. But he's left with
this dead cat, and something clicks in his head, right,
he realizes this is the opportunity. You know, He's got
Maxwell's poetic drivels running around his head and he realizes, Okay,

(41:32):
there is something I can do here, and then you
can probably guess what it.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Is, yeah, if you haven't caught on. Basically, he traces
the cat by covering the dead cat with clay, turning
it into a sculpture, which suddenly makes him hyper realistic
in his sculptures. That's something, I mean, how do you
get that kind of anatomy? You know, it's difficult to

(41:57):
really replicate the exact force and ratios of body parts
of a living creature, but he's got it overnight.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Yeah. Yeah, So he brings this this hideous sculpture in
which is just you know, supposed to be a dead
cat covered in clay, and then there's a knife sticking.

Speaker 5 (42:16):
Out of it.

Speaker 3 (42:17):
I love that he didn't remove the knife.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Yeah, he just left the knife in there. And you
know it first, you know, he brings us in, and
you know, Carla takes a look at it, and and
also decantist takes a look at it, and you know,
it's it's it's grim. And Desanta's is pretty quick to
want to just dismiss it. But Carla's nice and she's like,
I think you might have something here. And eventually Desanta's

(42:40):
is like, Okay, we'll put it in the corner. We'll
see if anybody buys it. It can go in the
corner of the coffee house and we'll just see what happens.
He doesn't seem to expect much, but of course, you
know what's going to happen. It catches on. People are
noticing this cool hyper realistic sculpture of a dead cat.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
It's very telling and very accurate of the art scene.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
Well, that's you want to walk us through the escalation
of these of these crimes each won a different artistic
creation by our protagonist Walter Paisley.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Yeah, almost an anti hero he's the subject for sure,
So we'll tell you now. Basically there's a rapid escalation
and his motivation changes from death to death to death
to death to death to moving on. So yeah, first
one is a cat and it's an accident, so perhaps
out of just desperation, he makes this statue and it's beloved.

(43:44):
Oh no, positive reinforcement. That's the worst thing anyone could
have done to Walter Paisley after accidentally killing something. So
he's very excited. He's he's he's uncloud nine. All the
other Beatniks are really proud of him for making a
this beautiful piece of art that Maxwell has said is good,
you know, So now everyone else is to say it's

(44:05):
good too.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
I should add. They like it so much that there's
this one lady who comes up to him at the
coffee house and she just can't put it into words
how beautiful the work is. So she gives him a
whole lot of heroin.

Speaker 3 (44:17):
Yes, she gives him a vial of heroin, and he
doesn't even know what it is. She just wanted to
be a part of this creation, and she thought that
the way she could do it. First, she tries to
go home with him, but he is very confused and
doesn't really understand what's happening. And then she goes, well,
I have to contribute. I have to be a part
of this, So then she gives him Heroin. Now, as

(44:39):
we've mentioned, there are two undercover cops who are on
constant rotation at this one coffee house. One of them
sees this handoff and follows Walter home. He interrupts Walter
in his house and goes, hello, Walter, and he's like, oh,
I know you. You come down to the store. How
are you come on in? Come on in, you know,
let's be friends or ray someone came to see me
at my house. And he's like, I'm an undercover cop.

(45:02):
I saw that you were handed Heroin. I'm gonna have
to take you in. He's like Heroin. He's like yeah, yeah,
that the little jar there's gonna be. He's like, you
know horse and he's like, oh, it wasn't that nicerver
to give me that.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
Nice horse, that nice expensive horse.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
Yes, And so he doesn't get it. He definitely doesn't
get it. Now, the undercover cop is frustrated, so he
tries to convince him and try to get what he
wants from him. So he pulls out his gun and
he's like, look, Walterrott, don't make me use this. I'm
gonna have to. He's like, oh, no, you're gonna shoot me.
He's like, no, I'm not gonna shoot you. I'm just
saying i'm a cop. I'm arresting you. Let's go. And

(45:34):
he's like, no, I don't want you to shoot me.
And so he was cooking at the time, and he
was holding like almost like a crape pan, let's say.
And so if you haven't seen a crape pan, it's
like a frying pan, except the edges are very, very low,
very a very shallow frying pan. And so Walter seemingly,
at least in his own mind for sure, in self defense,

(45:56):
swings this pan at the cop and we don't see
it on but later we will see just cleaves his
head right down the middle with this with this very
slim pan. So, first death was an animal and it
was an accident. Second death undercover cop quote unquote self defense.
Let's let's see where this keeps going. So obviously there's

(46:18):
the pattern here. So he covers this undercover cop in clay,
and I suppose we'll kind of let this part happen.
So the first person to realize what Walter is doing
is Leonard, the guy that owns the the the art house,
the coffee shop at the yellow door. And he sees
it because I believe the cat statue tips over and

(46:39):
just a little piece of fur is poking out, and
he's like, oh, you hack, fraud, you weirdo. What do
you do in trying to cover a dead cat and
clay and put it in my coffee house? This is ridiculous.
So he's about to like go tell it to Walter
and get mad at him when someone comes in, let's
call it a square patron comes in and it's like,
I need that cat sculpture. I'll pay you ten times

(47:01):
what you ask for. It's getting I must have it.
I must have it. And at first he's like, no,
I'm not gonna sell you a dead cat covered in clay.
He's I'll double it, and he's like, oh no, no, no,
I can't do that. I'll triple it. And you see it.
You see it Leonard's eye that he's like, oh, this
is money, this is absolutely money. Fine, I won't give

(47:22):
it to you today, but yes, we'll do it. Because
I'm sure, he goes through his mind. He's like, all right,
it's just a dead cat. It's fine, it's fine. Then
Walter brings in his next piece, which he has named
Murdered Man, and it's the undercover cop covered in clay,
and Leonard is the only one who puts two and

(47:44):
two together and understands what's happening, what has escalated. Everyone
else thinks it's a wonderful sculpture. How did you capture
that look of agony on his face?

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (47:53):
Your realism? Oh this is so wonderful. I remember there's
one point where someone's like, oh, how did you do
this so quickly? He's like, oh, you know, I just
put some clay on and fixed it up. No, no
big deal. He's like, must have taken you forever. It's like, no,
it doesn't take me too long. Like, okay, right, because
you're just putting a facade on this, you're not actually
sculpting anything. So everyone loves it except Leonard. Leonard feels ill.

(48:17):
Leonard does not want to be a part of this,
and he doesn't know what to do because on the
one hand, money and on the other hand, is he
like an accessory at this point? And so he's trying
to de escalate this whole situation. He's like, you know what, Walter,
why don't you maybe try some free form you know,
forget this human figure thing. No, no, nobody, nobody can

(48:38):
do that anymore. Just just just free form abstract things.
No more humans, no more death and destruction. Okay, And
everyone else is like, what he's so good at this,
clearly let him lean into this.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, Like Maxwell comes to his defense. It's like, don't
tell him how to do his art.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
Yes, it's wonderful, and uh so there we are now
now now because of this new statue and and the
first cat statue, the whole place is a buzz and
Leonard has even in an attempt to just kind of
I guess h a to keep Walter away from him

(49:17):
a little bit. He has I guess fired is the
right wrong way to put it, but he has given
him an advance for his sculptures and said just just
go just leave, don't don't don't make any more statues
for now, Okay, just just relax.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Yeah, going on's a little sabbatical here, and he's clear
he's not. He's like, yeah, don't don't make any more
art just yet, because again money, but also yeah, he
knows that what then what another piece would mean? And
he's probably, you know, juggling around this idea is like,
am I an accessory to murder at this point? And
then also you can imagine he's telling himself but hey,

(49:52):
nobody else has to know that. I know, I can
just be as surprised as everyone else when this eventually
blows up. But I can make a little bit of
money in the meantime.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
Absolutely, I mean, you know, the Yellow Door is not
a huge money making endeavor like the Beats and but
Head characters. I think they often say they have no
money and they're just hanging around. Yeah, I think there's
there's a lot of just people lurking there that aren't
actually giving Leonard any money. So moving on, the next

(50:21):
time we see Walter Paisley, suddenly he's got a little
money in his pocket. He has two successful sculptures. He
comes into the Yellow Door not as an employee but
as a guest. He's he's bought a fancy new beat
nick outfit. He's walking around like a little walking stick
that he refers to as his zen stick, which is
just remarkable, and everyone's just fawning over him. Maxwell invites

(50:45):
him down to be his special guest, et cetera, et cetera,
and this is all wonderful. Walter is having the best
time of his life. This is anything and everything he
ever wanted. He's getting it. But then an artist's model
who is often a part of the scene named Alice,
who's been out of town for the past week or two.
She says, she comes into the hangout and then like

(51:06):
everyone's fawning over Walter, and she's confused because she's like
what no, no, no, no, I'm awesome. You guys are awesome.
He's not awesome. He's just the bus boy. And they're like, no, no,
he's an artist now. And he's like, no, y'all, y'all
are putting me on, Like this is just a joke
for my benefit, Like he's just the bus boy. He
get him out of here. Walter doesn't like this. He
was just on the top of the mountain. He's not

(51:26):
gonna come down. So, like I said, she's an artist model.
He's mad at her. But she goes on home and
he follows her and he's like, I'd love to hire
you to be an artist model so I can make
another sculpture. And she's like, well that is my job. Fine,
let's do it. And he's like, yeah, let's do it now. Yeah. Yeah.
So she goes to his place and now Walter is

(51:47):
definitely crossing a line because you can see where this
is going. He kills her. He strangles her with a scarf,
and this one's just personal spite, like there's no self defense,
there's no accident. He is doing this because because Alice
was mean to him, and now he is he needs
a body for the arts. You know, it's it's very funny.
I was thinking about this. This movie came out from

(52:09):
the same writer director right before Little Shop of Horrors.
Many similarities. This situation here specifically is where it's like,
I gotta kill someone, well you're mean, I guess, I
guess you'll do. It's that same situation of a of
a of a ne'er do well, kind of nebish guy
just being like I need bodies. Here we go.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
And so now now he's going in cold blood. And yeah,
it's a character that she's not hateable, No, she's but
she's not supposed to be one hundred percent likable. So
you know, we're accelerating through that gray zone into like, yeah,
it's clearly he's a murderer at this point, but he
hasn't attempted to murder anyone that we really like yet.
And you know, especially in a genre picture like I

(52:54):
guess we were more forgiving of that sort of thing,
Like the threshold of the uncrossable transgression is is maybe
a little a little farther out in.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
A movie like this, but we still a room to escalate.
So we continue, and once again Leonard is like stop,
you have to stop, please stop, this is terrible. Stop stop, stop,
But he just keeps on doing his thing, and he's
he's he's really like kind of like hitting the thesis
on the head at this point, because they threw like
a big celebration for him where he got very drunk,

(53:27):
and he's just kind of like lamenting and feeling kind
of sad, and he starts like walking home alone by himself,
and he literally says the phrase, I gotta do something
before they forget. Yeah, it's just this this moment where
it's like, yeah, that's a kind of all he has
and all he wants is this moment of being in
the spotlight and being admired. I don't want to put

(53:50):
too many parallels here, but there's definitely some modern social
media parallels there of things of just like I just
got to do something for the gram. I just got
to put something up on TikTok. It doesn't really matter
what it is. I just need to stay in the
spotlight for another minute. And kind of like we were
saying before, where it's like he's not trying to get
notoriety by being good at something. He's not trying to

(54:11):
get notoriety because like he particularly loves making art, he
just wants to be famous. And so again there's some
social media parallels there of like just wanting fame for
fame's sake, to fit in be a part of a
social scene. And just like he said, I gotta do
something before they forget, I just need to go. I
just need to do. And so here's here's where he

(54:33):
crosses yet another line, a further escalation. He's walking home
drunk from the yellow door, and he sees like a
construction worker, perhaps like making a furniture in like a
little like outdoor kind of like alleyway workshop kind of thing,
and he just kills the man. He cuts off his
head with a like circular saw. Again, this is all
Hayes code, so we don't see anything. There's like no

(54:54):
violence in any of this. And he makes a bust.
It's just the man his head that he covers in
clay and like sticks on a stick. And if that's
our hey, that happens all the time. But no, Leonard
once again knows exactly what that is. And he's flipping out.
He doesn't know what to do. You see him just
acting like a like a very conflicted, you know, weirdo.

(55:18):
And but he's like, all right, we're going to set
up an art show because I got a cash in
on this owl.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
That's his logical conclusion. Not this is the point where
I call the police or even like set opposite and
like convince everyone, Like now I realize what's up. He's like,
let's go ahead and do that art show.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Well, we can't exactly. This has a shelf life, and
I need to get my money quick. Because he mentions
this and this is actually very accurate. He gets a
fifty percent cut of the sales of the pieces, and
in fact we do see him take advantage of Walter
early on. The dead Cat was originally being sold I
believe for one hundred, and so Walter would have gotten fifty,

(55:56):
and he would have gotten fifty. But the when he
was like, no, I'm not going to sell. I'm not
going to sell. I believe it went all the way
up to five hundred. But when he paid Walter, he
still only paid him fifty dollars. So Leonard is a
villain here and he is taking advantage of Walter, but
he really needs this money. So he's going to do
an art show and it's going to bring in everybody,

(56:17):
and so they do it. They bring him this big
art show. Got a dead cat, got a dead cop,
got a dead art model, got a dead construction worker's
head on a stick, all covered in clay, and everyone's
loving it. There's an art critic there saying, oh, I'm
going to write this up and all these pieces are
going to be worth ten times what they are now.
And everyone's loving it. This is a great time. And

(56:38):
at this point Walter Paisley is so you know, living
his dreams, that he does something that he's wanted to do,
which is to attempt a romantic relationship with Carla. She's
the only one that's ever been nice to him. He's
got to go and show her his feelings. He's at
the peak of his career that perhaps he'll that he

(57:01):
ever will be, he needs to do this now. So
he confesses his feelings and she's like, nah, we can
be friends, but I just don't see you that way.
Typical trying to let him down, easy situation, and you
see something kind of change in him, and he goes, yeah,
how about I do a sculpture of you, Carla?

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Oh yeah, And now he's really crossed that line, Like
now he's in the in the unredeemable area here because
he's decided, well, if you're not going to be my partner,
you are going to be my art.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Absolutely. So it went from accident to self defense to
personal spite with a stranger, random killing of a stranger.
Now it's personal killing of someone that he knows well
and has affection for. There's only one place you can
go after this, and I bet you can guess what
it is. So ultimately, I believe at the event someone

(58:00):
think bumps into oh no no. I believe they see
a fingernail poking out of the Alice sculpture and they're
trying to figure out what it is. Then someone knocks
over one of them and it cracks open and like
so that the cat is out of the bag. Everyone
knows and they are trying to go get Walter. Walter's like,
I got to get out of here, so he runs home.

(58:21):
I guess I want to put this delicately because it's
not a nice thing that happens. He puts a little
bit of clay on his face, covers himself, just a
little bit in clay, and he hangs himself and that
is the end of the film. And I believe Maxwell
says like, oh, it's his final piece, you know, And
that's it. That's the whole movie. And it's very straightforward,

(58:46):
very simple escalation, but just delicately done, and all the
pieces kind of fit together in a real nice, a
nice little you can you can feel the growth. It's
it's almost like breaking bad in a way. You're okay
with this character at first, and you just see them
getting worse and worse and worse, and by the end
you're like, no, I'm not with them. They're making they've

(59:06):
made too many bad decisions against people. I like, I'm
not in at all.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Yeah, I mean, this is like a lot of these
the pictures of this time period like, this is a
very short run time sixty five minutes, so everything is
very economically presented, like beat to beat. You can follow
it very easily. There's not a lot of wasted motion.

Speaker 3 (59:24):
Here, absolutely, Robert. I must tell you about something that
I attempted back when I believe I was in college
at the time. I wanted to make a full length
animated remake of this film by myself. At the time,
I was really into rotoscope animation. There's a studio called
Flat Black Films who did things like Waking Life and

(59:47):
Scander Darkly stuff like that. Loved that animation style, and
I decided I was going to make a rotoscoped film
of this film A Bucket of Blood. So I started it,
and I immediately realized how long it would take by
myself to rotoscope an entire feature length film. But I
did plan it all out, and the idea and all

(01:00:09):
of the work I put into is still sitting there.
In my first ten minutes of this film finished, i'd
called it another Bucket of Blood. And my favorite part
about this was that because it is black and white,
I had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted with
the color palette, and so I made each character within
a completely different hue of a color palette that had

(01:00:29):
a deeper meaning tied into like the representation of the
color and what that color can mean in like the
greater world. So, for example, Maxwell, because he was like
the head of the whole yellow door scene, I made
him purple because he was regal and the purple is
often a royal color associated with that. Leonard because he
runs the yellow door, his whole huge color palette was yellow.

(01:00:53):
And also because he's quite a cowardly character, he won't
actually take any action, won't do anything. Walter was completely
in shades of green because not only was he green
in terms of inexperience, he also had a bit at
the green eyed monster he was. He was very envious
of others and wanted to have what others had, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera. Like these, all all these things

(01:01:13):
happened for like all the central characters, they all had
a color coding that kind of like showed their future
intentions and also perhaps said something about their personality. And
I'm very sorry to say that I finished about oh
five minutes of this five to ten minutes, and I
was like, I will never do anything else. If I
dedicate my time to this, this will absorb my entire

(01:01:35):
life for the next five years if this is what
I focus on. So so yes, I'm sad to say
I never I never finished it, but I used some
clips in like animation reels that I used to like
get real animation jobs.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Oh that's good. It's a great idea for a project.
I guess you didn't have a B and No's moment,
but you had this moment that Walter never has, where
where you realized how much work it would take and
what it would take out of you, and what the
returns would be based on this investment.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
Absolutely, and in some ways. Rodoscoping, if folks don't know,
is an animation style used with tracing over source film panels.
So that being the case, I was well aware that
my animation style was pulling off what Walter Paisley was
doing in the film as well, that I was instead
of applying clay to the figures, I was putting a

(01:02:28):
layer of pixels over everyone. It was a fun project,
but that's for when you're you know, in your twenties,
and you have nothing but free time, and you think
that you know every art project is achievable because you
have infinite time in this world. Then you have to
get jobs, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Looking back on Walter's creations like the first one is
kind of an interesting stopping point because there are artists
who use and have used animals and dead animals and
adversity to varying degrees. They're actually as part of the
work as we see with Walter, or of course as
inspiration anatomical studies. I'm, of course very much opposed to

(01:03:08):
any kind of animal cruelty based artwork, but just the
idea of like a dead animal being used in the
art is not completely out of bounds.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
A very famous one is Damien Hurst. Damien Hurst, he
has done that with sharks, He has done that with gosh.
I think there are other animals as well. His shark
piece is the most famous. But you're absolutely right, and
these are highly applauded, highly famous and well respected artists.
Damien Hurst is one of the most popular modern artists

(01:03:40):
in the world and he has done this. He displayed
a dead shark in a tank and was like, that's
my art.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Yeah. And of course there are artists who have also
used either anatomical fluids or parts or even cadavers to
different degrees human cadavers. But of course one of the
key rules is you were not allowed to make that
cadaver yourself health and you need in any kind of
fluids or parts you use, it needs to be above board,
It needs to be consensual and above board.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
Yes, yes, I remember the body Works is like a
museum piece where they did that as well. And another
thing too that the artists who use these human or
animal bodies death as as like the palette, they're not
lying to you. They're not pretending that it's not a
dead body. They are saying this is this, that's part

(01:04:30):
of the message. They're not They're not hiding a dead
body inside of a clay exterior.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Now another interesting theme that I like, we get, we get,
we get to see a little bit of this, reflections
of it, perhaps in the like you know, the third act,
I guess you know where Walter is concerned about what's
next and you know, how am I gonna again we
talked about this, how you know, I've got to put
up something else. I've got to stay in the conversation.
And at the same time, like fear that they're going

(01:04:57):
to find him out, he's going to realize that he's
a fraud. So we have that interesting texture that he is,
I guess quite literally a fraud and there is this
dark secret and people don't know the dark secret of
how he's creating the art and it's not based in
his sculpting talent that has come out of nowhere, and
so you know, it gets into that whole like fear
that I think even very successful artists have that like

(01:05:19):
they're going to see through me, They're you know, they're
going to they're going to to to realize the insecurities
that I have about my creations.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Imposter syndrome for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
And then also, you know, getting back to what you said,
this idea of like how do I follow it up?
Like what is the next thing that I have to do?
And with Walter, like his pieces of art are literal crimes,
they're literal, you know, traumatic experiences that you know, we're
still taking a lot out of him. And yeah, we
can sort of like roughly compare that to any creative
process where it's like you put all this work into something,

(01:05:53):
you know, you lose something in making it, Maybe you
don't even love the thing when you're done with it. Anymore.
But it's done, and then there is either the overt
demand or just the pressure you feel to like you've
got to do something else. Now you've got to go
perhaps go through all of that again.

Speaker 3 (01:06:08):
Yeah, yeah, no, very understandable, very believable, And if folks
are curious, this version of a story has been told
multiple times in other lampoonings of the art world. There's
a really great one called Art School Confidential, where a
series of murders are taking place around like an art

(01:06:31):
school campus and then like the paintings of the dead
bodies are the remnants from the from the killer. And
then there's an episode of CSI I remember where people
were killing people and then the artist would then kind
of like that like bodies exhibit, they would like plasticize

(01:06:53):
them where they were just like standing on the street frozen,
and that was like their art. Like this idea because
when you think about like what are the extremes of
where art can go, this is a logical slippery slope
conclusion is like murder. Murder can be the thing because
because there are also versions of this. There was an artist,
for example, that his art piece was to be shot.

(01:07:16):
He stood in a gallery and got shot by a
gun and that was his art piece that day. So
so you know, there are versions of this in the
real world, and so it's it's fascinating. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
And then of course you also have the various Wax
Museum pictures where Atoy was some version of this as well.
It's like the hideous secret behind these these wax doubles
as that of course they're dead bodies that the wax
master is covered up in wax.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
Yeah. Yeah, it's an interesting concept that can be approached
multiple boys.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
Now, I'd say with the ending of the film, it like,
like you said, it's it's a pretty dark ending, but
it also happens really fast. It has that kind of
quick wrap up feel that you find in a lot
of especially like crime pictures of the time period, but
even like very you know of superheroe, horror, sci fi things.
It's like Enemy's Dead roll credits. So it's all very

(01:08:06):
sudden and it's very much in keeping with the time period.
But I found myself wondering again, he's just hanging up there,
He's got some clay just smeared on him. What if
they'd gone in a different direction, and what if Walter's
final creation his own death was beautiful. What if it
had been transcendent? What if it had been sublime? It
would have been really in keeping with the feel of

(01:08:27):
the film. But I can't help but imagine what that
would have I guess it would have skewed the message
of the film and perhaps an undesirable direction. But it
might have also been just a little less dark in
that regard.

Speaker 3 (01:08:41):
I'm not sure absolutely, And you know, there is also gosh.
I suppose a fetishization is perhaps too extreme of a term,
but you know, when artists die young, that is always
a thing that occurs where people will then give a
deeper embrace to their work, quite often for good reason,

(01:09:03):
because it's wonderful art. But it is just, you know,
it's a trope. It's a trope that if an artist
dies young, their work is embraced even more so what
would have happened the year after this? Would there have
been artists that were really inspired by his work? Could
there have been a bucket of blood too, where it
was another artist in like art school who was studying

(01:09:23):
Walter Paisley and then becomes a copycat murderer. I think
that's the easiest idea in the world. It would have
been wonderful.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, the the cult
of the the the the young artist that has we've
tragically lost, but also just like the idea, like the
cult of the young artist. I was listening to an
MPR piece before this recording, and uh, the expert, I'm sorry,
I don't I don't have the information in front of me.
I can't remember what the expert's name was, but he

(01:09:51):
was talking a bit about like this this myth, like
the basic myth that, like real creativity, it comes young
and it comes strong, you know, And it's the sort
of creative myth that ends up having a negative impact
on a lot of us. And you can imagine that
sort of myth impacting the fictional Walter Paisley as well, Like,
you know, I'm not a natural talent, then I must

(01:10:13):
be lost. There's nothing I can do. And that's not
the case.

Speaker 3 (01:10:16):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, No, it's for such a silly throwaway movie.
There's a lot of thought that went into it, and
a lot of thought you can have afterwards about its
implications and it's greater effect. And yeah, in many ways,
like I said that, the mirroring of our modern world
and how perhaps it's not that different from how it
was in the fifties. Comparing social media to the beatnick

(01:10:39):
world of the nineteen fifties a lot of similar aspects,
which is fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
I think my final thought well on this film would
be I was really expecting someone to say daddy O
at some point, and no one ever did. And it
makes me wonder I've never researched when daddy oo enters
public usage or becomes a sonociated with Beatnicks. Maybe I'm
going on faulty information here.

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
That's a great point. I actually own a couple of
Beatnik comics from around this era. There's a comic artist
I love named John Stanley, and he tried to make
a whole series just about goofy Beatniks in the nineteen
fifties and it was only popular enough to make two
issues and then it was canceled. And the thing I
remember in their slang is they use the word reat

(01:11:28):
all the time r ee t to mean like correct, right,
you know. And I remember, you know, in the twenty
twenties being like huh, all right, like you know better
than I do. But yeah, I thought you'd be saying
things like daddy. Oh but no, no, no, they had
their own slang.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
It's fascinating seeing those little like time capsules.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
All right, Seth, Well, this has been a lot of fun.
Thanks for coming on the show to discuss a bucket
of Blood from nineteen fifty nine. Yeah, a lot to
chew on with this one. Tell folks out there where
they can find Rusty Needles Record Club and how they
can get in touch with you.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
Absolutely so. Rusty Needles Record Club is a weekly podcast,
new episode every Friday, and it's a podcast in the
style of how podcasts used to be. Remember the old
days folks like around, like let's say two thousand and four,
when people made podcasts just for fun and didn't put
ads in them and just kind of like, yeah, they

(01:12:26):
were personal and simple and very niche. That's that's what
Rusty Needle's Record Club is. It's a two thousand and
four style podcast. And if you like music and you
want to expand your musical horizons, or perhaps you just
don't have anyone around you that you can have those
kind of conversations with, you can at least have like
a parasocial relationship with me and my co host Scott
as we talk about music. Our goal of the podcast

(01:12:49):
is to listen to every single album ever made, and
so far we're doing great. It's we are progressively moving
towards that direction. So if you want to join us,
just look up Rusty Needles Record Club anywhere you listen
to podcasts. We're available everywhere, and yeah, you'll find it.
It's easy, that's it. I join us if you feel like.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
It, all right. As for Weird House Cinema, of course,
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science podcast
with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays
we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about
a weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you want
a nice list of all the films we've covered so
far in the show, including I guess three episodes with

(01:13:31):
you now seth because during Joe's Brintal leave we covered
two films I think right. If you want to find
all of those, well, you can find a nice list
at letterboxed dot com. It's L E T T E
R B O x D dot com. Our username is
weird House. There's a nice list there. Dive in there
find something you've never seen before, or find something you
want to revisit. It's a great tool to use. And yeah,

(01:13:54):
in general, I'll just ask everyone out there, Hey, if
you've never rated and reviewed the podcast one of the
many platforms where you can get it, why don't you
do that? That could help us out. Another thing, if
you listen to this on Apple on Apple device, just
maybe pop in and make sure that you're still still subscribe,
you're still getting downloads. That also helps us out in
the long run. Thanks as always to our excellent producer

(01:14:16):
JJ for helping put together the show here and if
you want to get in touch with me and or Joe,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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