The 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen (27 page)

By age 33 Carole Lombard was one of the leading stars in Hollywood. Nicknamed the Profane Angel because of her bawdy sense of humor and beautiful visage, she commanded a fee of $35,000 per movie, making her one of the highest paid female stars of the time. She and her movie star husband Clark Gable embodied the glamour of Tinsel Town. It was a seemingly charmed life. Lombard's fairy tale came to a tragic end on January 16, 1942, just months before her last film,
To Be or Not To Be
premiered.

To Be or Not To Be
is one of the most biting satires to ever hit the silver screen. Conceived and written by German ex-patriot director Ernst Lubitsch, the film is set just before the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland. Jack Benny and Carole Lombard play Joseph and Maria Tura, stars of a Polish troupe of actors. Their lives, professional and personal, are thrown into turmoil because of the German occupation of wwii. The actors are pressed into service to protect the Polish underground. Impersonating Nazi officials, they become involved in a variety of schemes to undermine the German campaign. The troupe is successful, uncovering a treacherous double agent before safely fleeing the country in Hitler's plane.

The tale of Polish actors thwarting the Nazis was a change of pace for director Lubitsch. After leaving Germany in the late 1920s he helmed a series of movies such as
Ninotchka
and
Trouble in Paradise
that gave birth to a common Hollywood phrase — “the Lubitsch Touch” — that referred to witty, sophisticated films. Possessing a firm but loving hand with actors, he was able to wheedle great performances from his casts, often displaying what he envisioned for a role by acting out the scenes for them.
To Be or Not To Be
was darker, more biting than anything Lubitsch had done before, or would do after.

Lubitsch may have had a personal reason for attacking the fascist regime. As a well-known actor in Germany, a cruel caricature of his profile was circulated on a Nazi propaganda poster as an example of the typical Jewish face.

The idea of framing a comedy around the exploits of the Nazis wasn't exactly a new idea. Charlie Chaplin had stirred up controversy in 1940 with
The Great Dictator
, an anti-fascist spoof set in the fictional land of Tomania, but
To Be or Not To Be
is a different sort of bird. More derisive than Chaplin's offering, Lubitsch paints the Nazis as buffoons, and his movie rides a thin line between comedy and outright propaganda. While there is nothing remotely funny about the Nazis or their deeds, surefire objects for ridicule are authority and arrogance, and in this case the flawed logic of the fascists is a perfect target. Many critics in 1942, however, thought the Nazis were no laughing matter, with one, Bosley Crowther of
The New York Times
saying that he is “unable even remotely to comprehend the humor.” It's worth noting that the sentiment of the times was playing against this movie, much as today's audiences may have reacted strongly to a farce about the events of 9-11 released shortly after that tragic day.

As “that great, great actor Joseph Tura,” Jack Benny hands in his best big screen performance. Although blessed with unerring comic timing and a deadpan glance that could send audiences into spasms of laughter without saying a word, movies weren't his forte; he was best suited to the more intimate medium of television. Having said that, he is a delight in
To Be or Not To Be
. His dialogue shines, particularly the one-liners. “I'm going to have to do the impossible,” he says, “I'm going to have to surpass myself.” His Joseph is so conceited, so self-centered he is a riot to watch.

In one unforgettable scene Joseph is in the midst of the
Hamlet
soliloquy from which the movie takes its name, as Sobinski (a very young Robert Stack) rises to leave the theater. Benny's reactions to the snub are worth the price of admission, as he silently watches the patron leave during the performance, too stunned to even speak. It's the deadpan leer Benny was famous for, but it was rarely ever used to better effect.

Benny may have the showier role, but the picture really belongs to Lombard, whose last role was tailor-made for her. As Maria Tura, the manipulative ingénue of a small Polish acting troupe, she is a wonder to behold. The years spent churning out one- and two-reelers for Mack Sennett gave her a master's touch in the comedic scenes; her work at Paramount honed her dramatic skills and her great beauty gave her charisma to burn. Combined, these elements add up to a tour de force performance that she rightly considered to be her best ever. She died in a plane crash while on a war bond tour just three weeks after shooting on the film wrapped.

Although
To Be or Not To Be
was a flop at the time of release, it has belatedly earned praise from film historians who praised Lubitsch's handling of the risky material and his skillful weaving of comedy, propaganda, and drama. The style of the film stands alone in the Lubitsch canon; it isn't as fluffy and sophisticated as his other movies, but given the subject matter coupled with his own personal feelings, perhaps a little heavy-handedness is to be expected.

To Be or Not To Be
was remade in 1983 as a vehicle for Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. The stories are not identical, and while Brooks earned good notices as the hammy actor, it is the Lubitsch version that is required viewing.

Director Lloyd Kaufman describes his work as “a Cuisinart of genres,” which is Lloyd-speak for his brand of extreme cinema that combines ultra-violence, slapstick, and horror with the sensibilities of
Mad
magazine. In 1984 Kaufman directed
The Toxic Avenger
, a film that would define his vision of exploitation movies. The film was so over-the-top it took almost one year after completion to find a movie theater in the United States that would screen it. Despite the outrageous X-rated content of the film, it spawned a cottage industry, and put Kaufman's company, the fiercely independent Troma Films, on the map.

The Toxic Avenger
stands alone in the history of cinema as the only movie where a kid's head is crushed beneath the wheel of an automobile to be made into a children's environmentally correct Saturday morning cartoon show. “That's pretty cool,” says Kaufman.

In the early 1980s Kaufman and former Yale classmate Michael Hertz had reached a crossroads. Their film production company Troma had made a name and decent box-office returns, pumping out a string of low-budget sex comedies geared toward the B-movie market. In mid-1983 though, the Troma mantra of “guaranteed bottoms would give you guaranteed bottom line,” hadn't held true.

Their fearless commitment to the public's desire to watch scantily clad women in unpredictable (and unlikely) situations had insured that there would be a small but loyal audience for their films. So entrenched was their reputation for making jiggle movies that one pundit suggested that their name actually stood for “Tits R Our Main Asset.”

“Troma tries to give people something they haven't seen before,” says Kaufman of his company's manifesto. “They will be challenged. Troma tries to provoke people. We're trying to get people's juices flowing with the hope that [they will see past] this baby food mentality of $100 million movies, which have to be all things to all people. We're trying to get rid of that. You can live on baby food, but it is boring. We're the jalapeno peppers on the cultural pizza.”

The two-man production team made their name with the 1979 sex-romp
Squeeze Play
. “We came up with the title referring to the squeezing of women's breasts,” says Kaufman. “I was very surprised when I found out that, co-incidentally, this was also a strategy in softball.” The story of the Beaverettes — an amorous all-girl softball team — established Troma's recipe of outrageous humor mixed with social comment, all served with a healthy dose of t&a. Setting the film apart from the run-of-the-mill sex romps were Kaufman's hot topic references to the then-burgeoning women's lib movement. But it was the movie's combination of sports and sex appeal that seduced audiences, turning
Squeeze Play
into the neophyte company's first financial success. More importantly, it taught the duo about what plays on the silver screen.

Three more teen sex flicks followed —
Waitress
,
Stuck On You
,
The First Turn On
— making the Troma brand synonymous with rollicking, playful films.

“Disney has a brand,” says Kaufman, “and according to the
New York Times
Troma is the only other studio where people go for the brand name.” Indie film legend Roger Corman calls Kaufman's vision the point “where the anarchic meets the ridiculous.” Typical of the humor is a scene in
Stuck On You
where chickens are shown pornography so they will lay more eggs. It's a scene that was shocking at the time, but would now fit perfectly in the mainstream films of the Farrelly Brothers or Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

Troma gained a reputation for no-holds-barred, anything goes, gonzo filmmaking. Was there anything they wouldn't do? “I wouldn't do something that suggests Adolph Hitler or Hillary Clinton are good people,” says Lloyd. “I wouldn't do that. I don't believe I would do a movie with Barbra Streisand or Julia Roberts either.”

With notoriously low budgets, Troma turned a profit (sometimes just barely) by identifying their customers and pandering to them. Small, sexy comedies, released one theater at a time with imaginative promotional gimmicks, became a hallmark of the Troma team.

Then the big boys caught on.

By and large Troma had operated under the radar of the majors, but as their success grew, they couldn't stay underground for long. Soon, larger budget, broadly released sex farces were eating away at the Troma niche. Troma product was squeezed out of the theaters, which were booked solid with studio teen comedies. Faced with diminishing returns, Kaufman and Hertz needed to find a new direction.

The direction came to Kaufman while reading
Variety
. A voracious reader, he was always scanning the newspapers and trades for inspiration. What he read would change the face of Troma films, and pop culture, despite being news that would have sent anyone else running in the opposite direction. In large block letters the headline screamed, “The Horror Film Is Dead.” A regular film producer would have looked at the news, and decided to make comedies, dramas, or gangster movies — anything
but
horror films. But Lloyd saw an opportunity to open a Pandora's Box of sex, violence, humor, and the world's first superhero from New Jersey.

“We knew from film history that since the beginning the horror film was very viable, and wasn't going to go away,” Lloyd told the Australian webzine
Tabula Rasa
in 1994. “We figured, well, if people weren't going to make horror movies temporarily, maybe there's an open window we could jump into and make a film in that genre, so when the vogue comes back, we'll be at the forefront.”

Ignoring the proclamations of “the machine's trade paper,” Kaufman set out to write
Health Club Horror
, featuring a disgusting-looking creature. An article in
I.F. Stone's Weekly
about South American children who played with “pixie dust” found at a local dump stuck in Kaufman's head. The dust was actually irradiated waste from X-ray machines.

“The children had fun frolicking in the beautiful, shiny sparkles, and it ended up killing them,” writes Kaufman in his 1998 book
All I Need To Know About Filmmaking I Learned From The Toxic Avenger
. “To this day I find this chilling.”

The resulting film, now called
The Toxic Avenger
, was set in the “Toxic Waste Dumping Capital of America,” Tromaville, New Jersey. While working at a health club, 90-pound weakling health club janitor Melvin Furd (Mark Torgl) is constantly bullied by Bozo (Gary Schneider) and his gang. When a prank misfires, Melvin lands in a barrel of toxic waste and mutates into the lumpy-headed Toxic Avenger (Mitchell Cohen). “Toxie,” as he is affectionately known, soon wins the respect of the people of Tromaville as he wages a war against crime, armed only with a mop. He is a hero to the underdog, but hated by the town's corrupt mayor and police chief, who call in the National Guard to battle Toxie.

One unforgettable scene is the famous head-crushing sequence. Removed from the R-rated version of the film years ago, it was restored for the director's cut dvd. Like so many of Kaufman's inspirations, this one came from a real life incident when he accidentally ran over his four-year-old kid sister Susan. (She's fine.) Recently Kaufman unveiled the secret behind the gory effect. “It was just a melon in a wig!” he says. Although Troma reports that the scene where a dog is shot garnered the most complaints, the head-crushing sequence (repeated several times) remains one of the film's highlights.

Like all Troma films,
The Toxic Avenger
is an acquired taste. Gallons of fake blood are spilled, hands are plunged into deep fryers; in fact, all of Toxie's charitable acts of crime fighting are far more gruesome than anything the bad guys ever do. Oh, yeah, there's a sex scene between Toxie and Sara — a blind patron of a Mexican restaurant — that is not for the faint of heart. Ultimately though, the film is a good underdog tale, with some surprising performances. Andree Maranda is effective as Sara, while Dick Martinsen as Officer O'Clancy, the most Irish cop ever, is more comedic than stereotypical.

By far,
The Toxic Avenger
is the most successful (in a cult way) of the Troma catalog. Toxie became a Saturday morning cartoon character, had his own line of Marvel Comics, and has spawned three Troma-produced sequels. Two were produced in 1989 at the height of Toxie-mania —
The Toxic Avenger Part II
and
The Toxic Avenger III: The Last Temptation of Toxie
. A full 10 years passed before Kaufman once again turned his eye toward the superhero.

“We only do things we believe in, and frankly for 10 years I was not interested [in The Toxic Avenger]. He was getting fat. He was using a cellphone. He had an agent and then suddenly he came out of retirement. He's like John Travolta,” said Kaufman on the release of
Citizen Toxie
in 2000. “It's a shot-for-shot remake of the Orson Welles classic, with all the gore, lesbian, and dismemberment scenes added that the evil Howard Hughes forced Welles to take out in the first place.”