6/21/23
Newsletter #374
The Crack of Dawn
Upon completion of The Blind Waiter, we began showing it at parties, just as we’d done with many of the earlier films. The film killed (as opposed to died), and quickly became a party favorite. Suddenly, the idea of making comedies – as opposed to horror films – seemed like a good idea again. Evil Dead was mired in reshoots and post-production anyway. So, Scott and I decided to make another comedy short, only this time in 16mm. And we then went through the always-painful routine of trying to come up with the next idea. Scott kept trying to sell the horror parody, and I just didn’t want to go there. Having recently returned from shooting Evil Dead, I didn’t want to see or use any more fake blood for a while.
Scott and I couldn’t come up with anything for weeks, maybe a couple of months. We had gotten to the point where we couldn’t agree about anything, and maybe we shouldn’t make movies together. The magic had lasted for one film. Then we were driving along Franklin Road through Franklin, where both me and the Raimis lived, and we passed the cemetery, which is located on top of a hill. Just as we were driving past, a workman was trying to mow the strip of grass leading down a rather steep incline to the road. He was going vertically when he lost control of the push mower. He fell on his face, then the lawnmower changed direction and, still running, came right down the hill toward the cars. Luckily, it ground to a halt when it hit the shoulder of the road. Scott and I looked at each other and we both said, “A lawnmower goes out of control.” And just like the nearly-blind waitress with the Coke bottle glasses pouring coffee all over our table the last time we needed an idea; the universe had just supplied us with a new idea.
Scott and I named the film, Torro, Torro, Torro!, which we both thought was hysterical, and, once again, it would just be a non-stop series of gags. By switching to 16mm we could now do reverse motion and stop-motion animation, which Super-8 couldn’t handle. I recently explained the use of reverse motion, so I won’t go into it again. Since we had this new guy in the group, Bart Pierce, who worked at Producer’s Color Film Lab, and was presently doing the stop-motion effects on Evil Dead (as well as having an affair with my elder sister), we got him to do the animation gags in Torro, several of which are unique and cool.
Franklin Cemetery has a formidable iron fence – it’s an old cemetery with Civil War graves – and the fence has lethal-looking points on the top.
Excuse me as I interrupt myself, just this moment I thought, “I don’t think I’ve seen this movie in at least 25 years.” I put the title into Google, and there was the movie on YouTube – torro torro torro movie - Google Search – in the best transfer that I ever had made of that film. Did anyone ask my permission? Of course not, and I don’t care. The fact that the best version is immediately available is all that’s important. That movie probably has more of the people we knew in it than any other film, because we had to fill the scene of the Franklin Bake-Off, which then allowed us to hit everyone we knew in the face with pies. Since Scott was the manager of a grocery store, we got a great deal on pies. And meanwhile, throwing pies into people’s faces is difficult. I threw the pie into my mother’s face, and I fucked it up so bad it got cut out of the film, which is too bad. Of course, the master pie-throwers were Bruce and Scott. They squarely nailed everybody we knew with a pie right in the mush. Even I appear for a brief moment in a silly reverse motion shot of hair landing on my head.
Anyway, back on top of the pointy fence, I asked Bart, “Can you use stop-motion and drag Scott across the top of the fence, pulled by the lawnmower?” He said, “Sure.” We set up the camera so that the fence was running toward the lens, we sandbagged the tripod so it wouldn’t move, then Bart stepped in. Using Scott like a movable doll, Bart put him into each position along the fence, then went back to the camera, said, “Take a breath and freeze,” then he shot a single frame. It took an hour, and Scott was extremely uncomfortable with the iron fence up his crotch. But the effect worked perfectly, even if it goes by so fast you hardly notice it.
Once again, we shot almost the whole movie in a weekend. I noticed as I just watched the film that Bruce got the sole producer’s credit. After The Blind Waiter he just took over.
As a note, we shot the whole film without sound, then put the very few lines back in afterward. There are also many quips, grunts, groans, and asides, and almost all of them are Bruce doing twenty different voices, no matter who’s on camera.
It’s a crude piece of filmmaking, and nothing more than a non-stop series of gags and effects, but that was all we were after. And coming in at a running time of just under 7-minutes, it was another party favorite. Plus, since we shot in 16mm, which was a broadcast acceptable format, and we paid for the stock music, we actually had the right to sell the film, should we ever find a buyer.
But since that one worked so well, which made two in a row, we decided to immediately make another comedy short, Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter (1981).
The sun has risen here in lovely San Rafael. I return to Detroit and my cat Ike tomorrow. As my old Yidishe grandma used to say, “It’s nice to leave, and it’s nice to come home.”
I really enjoyed Torro, Torro, Torro!, and it's on my list of favourites with The Case of the Topanga Pearl, Holding it and Acting and Reacting.