James VanBebber's Manson Family

James VanBebber's Manson Family is not for the squeamish. Consider that your trigger warning. 

Roger Ebert titled his review, "Disgusting but undeniably powerful." I don't know how to say it better. This film is gory art. I expected to watch ninety minutes of nonsense, make a few screen caps, type a bit of gallows humor, and move on. I could not have been more mistaken. 

Patti Smith lyrics rushed through my mind during the parts of this movie my eyes refused to watch. 

"I'm an American artist and I have no guilt. I seek pleasure. I seek the nerves under your skin." 

You will find the film online in two seconds. I tried to buy a copy on Amazon but was unsuccessful. Van Bebber began the project in 1988. Ebert's review was published in 2004. 

Links to a few VanBebber interviews are located below my screen caps. His great sense of humor comes through in his work. Severin Films released a DVD/Blu Ray combo in 2003. I've also included a few pages from a book on the film. 

Let's go to the screen caps. First up, Brenda McCann. VanBebber plays Bobby and maybe steals his own show. Maureen Allisse as Sadie also maybe steals the show. The cast definitely works. I could list most of them as show stealers. 

Let's Go George!

Clem and Bruce are combined into Clem Davis lol.  

Leave. Something. Witchy. Marcelo Games is a memorable Charlie. 

VanBebber takes Hendrickson, Helter Skelter, and other well-known interviews with the inmates, etc, runs it through a Pettibon Book of Manson filter, and adds an Olympic-size swimming pool amount of blood to his exploration of young people and their continuing infatuation with Charles Manson. The result is pop culture at its darkest. 

Film club, tell me what you think. 

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VanBebber interviews:

dvdtalk.com

Decibel Magazine part one and part two.

birthmoviesdeath.com

* Thanks to my homie, Al, for the page photos. Secret agent Deb also helped with this post. I'm grateful to both of them. Jimmy VB, if you Google yourself and end up here, that's me in your inbox begging for an interview.  

** We have a couple of new writers joining the blog and experienced a little mixup over who was posting today. I was holding this post back for Friday but hopped in when I discovered the confusion. Real writers will be back with actual research next Monday, although I might return first this Friday with more of my nonsense. 

I'm your kind. I'm your brother. 

And I claim weekends as my own. +ggw

Book of Manson (1989) Film

The Book Of Manson was released in 1989. The film is available to watch on Youtube but is broken into five sections. Part one is missing. I'd buy a copy if mine were the bank accounts of a university and not a dumb writer but life is what it is and I'll likely die without knowing what happens in part one. 

"The loose plot and bad production make it difficult to watch but it's very rewarding if you can stay on the ride." 

A reviewer named Ruiz wrote that about BoM seven years ago. You won't find many reviews online and Ruiz was succinct. 

Book of Manson is mucho irreverent in spades. Filmmaker Raymond Pettibon has the comedic timing of Roman Polanski. More than once, the thought crossed my mind that I was watching a Polanski treatment of the Manson family. Take that however you like. I went into the Polanski catalog expecting to confirm my dislike for the director but walked away with respect for his films. Not that I'd advise you to send your seventh grader to a pool party at his place. 

Pettibon is also the writer for BoM. His film is huge on dialogue and much of it is solid gold. A nuanced, punk rock, 80's, Manson family? The Marx Brothers crossed my mind several times but only if they were from the dark side or something Idk. 

You've heard for years that a California record label was set to release an album of Charles Manson's music in the 1980's but backed out after receiving threats. Filmmaker Pettibon's brother, Greg Ginn, is the owner of that label. I started asking around about the threats hoping someone would say, "Four huge guys in sweatsuits eating gabagool hopped out of a black Cadillac yelling, 'Bada bing we're the Mafia! Big Tony says no record, capeesh?"  

And if not the mob then who? Phil Kaufman? Doris Day? How would the public even know? The threats were confirmed but downplayed. "Nothing as serious as you might be thinking." 

Got it. Joke threats. So funny you don't put the record out. And don't think I would've either. I was terrified of Charles Manson in the 80's. Everyone "into" him was talking about the Process Church and not  ATWA down at the home place. 

Anyway. A couple of years after threats killed the record, Pettibon made BoM. Gutsy to say the least. 

The scene at Bobby's might be my favorite. Again nuance. Again irreverence. Janet Housden plays Mary Brunner. Gary asks Bobby, Sadie, and Mary if Charlie sent them. Bobby doesn't like Mary's affirmation, flexes on her, and announces he's running things. 

How many Gary arguments have taken place on this blog? Was it the Satans' money or an inheritance? Why did Mary tell Guenther and Whiteley they were after three grand?  

Here's my six degrees. I was pestering Henry Rollins with letters in 1991 while Joe Cole helped with his mail. Thirty years ago today, Cole was murdered by muggers in front of the house he shared with Rollins in the Oakwood neighborhood of Venice Beach, California. Rollins escaped by dodging bullets. 

This is Henry talking about Cole's killing. Rollins was the record label's point man with Manson. Joe Cole also worked at SST Records. I was over the moon when Cole's response showed up at my PO Box, and his awful death shook me. Even after they handed over fifty bucks, Cole was shot in the face at point blank range. 

Senseless, cruel, and sad. Joe Cole has been dead for almost as long as he lived. I won't ever understand why his death was necessary and wanted to drop a quick shoutout here today in remembrance. Some of you might remember Cole's killing and others will not. I don't drink anymore but if I did, I'd pour a little out for Joe. 

Robert Hecker's scenes as Charlie are magic imo. I went stalking him online and almost fell out of my chair so great was my haste to email blog reader Tobias Rabe. Hurdles! 

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Here's an associated Cease to Exist cover from back then. Same scene. Housden plays drums on the bonus tracks of the 1986 re-release. Calling the 80's "back then" is like whoa kinda. My sweet Gen X is starting to get old. If you watch BoM, please tell me what you think. +ggw

Harold Ramis' Manson Movie that Never Was

From http://splitsider.com/2012/01/the-lost-projects-of-harold-ramis/

Laser Orgy Girls (unproduced, in development late ’70s)
Writer
After Matty Simmons and Ivan Reitman passed on Freshman Year, Harold Ramis began writing a script called Laser Orgy Girls with Lampoon writer, editor, and co-founder Doug Kenney. The script, which followed a teenaged Charles Manson's adventures as a suburban high school student who meets some extraterrestrials in the desert, was well-liked by Matty Simmons, Ivan Reitman, and John Landis, the eventual director of Animal House; but it was a little too bold and brash to be unleashed on the American public at that time. Here's Ramis on Laser Orgy Girls:

“Our story concerned Charles Manson in high school, a strangely seductive, demented loner living in the white bread world of a typical Midwestern suburb, corrupting the local youth and forming a depraved cult of flying saucer worshipping teenage zombies. We called it Laser Orgy Girls. The marketing slogan for the popular American Graffiti had been ‘Where were you in ’62?’ Ours was ‘Where was he in ’63?’ To Matty and Ivan’s credit, they actually liked it, but after a moment’s reflection suggested we go back to the idea of doing a college movie.”
As mentioned earlier, John Landis was a particularly big fan of the script, speaking its praises recently in a 2010 interview:

“Their first script was about Charles Manson in high school and, actually, it was really fucking good. There was a great opening gag in which you start out outside San Quentin. The camera goes in through the window, through the walls, through the chicken wire, down into the deepest bowels of the prison. There's Manson in a straitjacket, padded cell, swastika carved in his forehead, and he looks up and says, 'Is it hot in here, or am I crazy?'”

After Harold Ramis and the National Lampoon folks realized there was no way they were going to get the Manson movie made, Ramis and Doug Kenney teamed up with Lampoon writer Chris Miller. The trio combined their sensibilities to write Animal House, which would become the highest-grossing comedy ever at the time of its release.

Calling All Charlie Lookalikes

Do you look like Charlie? Are you okay with working for "deferred payment?" Then Patty may have a tip for you:

https://www.cazt.com/auditions/details/?id=4487

"Charles Manson Look Alike, 60 To 80 Years Old For A Psychological SAG Short Film.
PAID: deferred Role: Charles Manson Role Type: Lead Gender: Male Age: 60-80 Ethnicities: Caucasian, Hispanic

Lead / Male / Caucasian, Hispanic, Ethnically Ambiguous / 60 - 80 years Description: MALE 60s/80s CHARLES MANSON LOOK ALIKE. We need a man that looks like Charles Manson as he looks today. Please google him to see how he looks like. His height is 5'2", so anyone between 5'0" and 5'6", slim build, gray hair and gray beard. The talent need to be great with emotions, especially showing terror. Great with improv and great at taking directions.

Project: Charlie Is My Darlin (Submissions) Project Type: Short Film

Amazing psychological thriller, everything happening in one night, in one room."

Pretty Face Movie

I hope you all do LOVE and appreciate me for this

one and everything else I bring you.
I was looking into getting some updates on the
up and coming M movies.
Pretty Face starring Flea from Red Hot Chili
Peppers as Charlie, finally has a web site.
Nice big write up over there I planned on copying
and pasting for everyone. Well, those bastards
don't allow copying and pasting.
Eviliz is exhausted from hand scribing it all
and is now extra bitchy evil typing it all up
for everyone.
This f-ing blog is a full time job-trust me.
It is a good thing I have no life or job.
I may have to start charging everyone.
E-mail me on where to send the check.
They are looking into funding to start filming I think next year.
Val Kilmer is supposed to be in this movie and he better look good!!
And, to The Colonel-have fun ripping it apart!


Synopsis- In the summer of 69' Jenna, a rebellious 15 year old girl, abandoned by her dead beat single mom, steals a horse from her best friend's family and runs away from their loving arms.
Her naive and very square best friend follows her on another horse and the two girls stumble across the Manson Family living in a abandoned movie ranch.


Jenna a street smart budding singer-songwriter, is not fooled by their talk of peace and love and living free, but her sweet and innocent friend is gradually seduced by their siren call.
The situation gets dangerous but Jenna stands her ground against the
infamous Charlie, Bobby and Tex and is forced to make a great and heroic personal sacrifice to save her friend from a horrific night with the wanton members of the Family.


Pretty Face lives half way between fact and fiction, blending factual details about tje day to day existence of the Manson Family in the weeks leading up to the infamous murders with the fictional coming of age story of a damaged crass, but ultimately loving, teenage heroine.


Forty years on the story of Charles Manson and the Family continues to exert a powerful fascination on the world. Previous films made about the Family have always focused on the notorious murders perpetrated by the group. Pretty face takes a look at the untold story of how normal teenage girls from respectable families were so easily corralled into a world of sex, drugs and violence.


www.prettyfacethemovie.com

Benjamin Franklin looking Val Kilmer

Added by Matt - (Sorry Liz!)

Goodnight.
Oh, and some how some way I ended up on Zimbo. WTF is Zimbo
and how did my stuff get there?


http://www.zimbio.com/Charles+Manson/articles/XC_HU3WeOMa/movies+movies+movies+5+of+them