Maniac is a badly conceived and executed film from 1934, with only wacky characters populating the reels saying and doing bizarre things. There's syringes waved about in nearly every scene, bare female breasts occasionally, a cat's eye popped out, a cat-fight, so many verbal and filmic non-sequiteurs it must have been made on the hoof. Maniac could have lasted a couple of hours if all the dropped threads had been picked up - just think what a state we the audience would have been in! I presume the Wild Man was still raping the naked reanimated woman at the end?
And yet after the the 50 minutes were up I felt vaguely satisfied and could have stood a bit more of this crazy world. Even with all of the on-screen tutorials this was not a pretentious film like Blazing Saddles or irredeemable like Plan 9, what you see is what was basically intended in the first place. It took me many plays in the 70's to fall in love with Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, maybe I've got to see it again to move Kane off No. 1 spot ... Maybe I could have done with a few familiar faces - Lionel Atwill, Bela or Boris, or ... Dwight Frye!
No, it's OK as it is as splendid rubbish.
And yet after the the 50 minutes were up I felt vaguely satisfied and could have stood a bit more of this crazy world. Even with all of the on-screen tutorials this was not a pretentious film like Blazing Saddles or irredeemable like Plan 9, what you see is what was basically intended in the first place. It took me many plays in the 70's to fall in love with Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, maybe I've got to see it again to move Kane off No. 1 spot ... Maybe I could have done with a few familiar faces - Lionel Atwill, Bela or Boris, or ... Dwight Frye!
No, it's OK as it is as splendid rubbish.