"Wild Guitar" was the first film I have seen in the Ray Dennis Steckler oeuvre. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience thanks to TCM.
Arch Hall, Jr. plays a young musician whose career is managed by a character resembling Bob Marcucci or "Colonel" Tom Parker. The manager is played by Arch Hall, Sr., using the name William Watters. The elder Hall ran the production company that made "Wild Guitar", and he did in fact promote his son's career. The movie imitated life, generally, specifically – and strangely!
Nothing to add to all that has been said except–
The straight-from-the-can Cheez Whiz organ for the music textures the soundtrack in a wonderful 60's way. A pop culture time machine worthy of Proust!
And –
"Wild Guitar" got me thinking about a much praised French language work released two years earlier:
Both films offer takes on fame and celebrity in the early 1960's.
The male leads in both possess odd facial features and portray star-struck characters.
The acting is wooden, especially from the female leads.
The directors in each movie play parts.
The plots in both films feature absurd crimes.
Location shooting on city streets is used. Some shots look as if the cinematographer, equipped with a hand-held Arriflex, had been turned loose on Hollywood Boulevard or the Avenue des Champs-Elysees.
Some sequences are quite artistic. Example: the (improbable) night skating sequence in "Wild Guitar".
Editing in both is rough, the continuity laissez-faire.
Low-end production values predominate, so low that immediately after production the star of the European film believed the movie was so bad he thought it would never be released.
The credits display poverty row or no-name production companies' logos.
Each film still has a substantial following today, half a century later, and each is enjoyed retrospectively via cable and DVD, as well as at revival showings at theaters.
Both remain topics of film journal essays.
Are the cynics right? Is a movie's reputation mostly a matter of marketing, of packaging, of its distribution channels. . .?
Give the Halls French dialogue with English subtitles. Show their movie on the art house and festival circuit. Dub that foreign art film into English and peddle it to drive-ins and late night TV shows. Jean-Luc Godard might be recognized today only as a European precursor to Ray Steckler, with "Breathless" nothing more than the French "Wild Guitar"!
Arch Hall, Jr. plays a young musician whose career is managed by a character resembling Bob Marcucci or "Colonel" Tom Parker. The manager is played by Arch Hall, Sr., using the name William Watters. The elder Hall ran the production company that made "Wild Guitar", and he did in fact promote his son's career. The movie imitated life, generally, specifically – and strangely!
Nothing to add to all that has been said except–
The straight-from-the-can Cheez Whiz organ for the music textures the soundtrack in a wonderful 60's way. A pop culture time machine worthy of Proust!
And –
"Wild Guitar" got me thinking about a much praised French language work released two years earlier:
Both films offer takes on fame and celebrity in the early 1960's.
The male leads in both possess odd facial features and portray star-struck characters.
The acting is wooden, especially from the female leads.
The directors in each movie play parts.
The plots in both films feature absurd crimes.
Location shooting on city streets is used. Some shots look as if the cinematographer, equipped with a hand-held Arriflex, had been turned loose on Hollywood Boulevard or the Avenue des Champs-Elysees.
Some sequences are quite artistic. Example: the (improbable) night skating sequence in "Wild Guitar".
Editing in both is rough, the continuity laissez-faire.
Low-end production values predominate, so low that immediately after production the star of the European film believed the movie was so bad he thought it would never be released.
The credits display poverty row or no-name production companies' logos.
Each film still has a substantial following today, half a century later, and each is enjoyed retrospectively via cable and DVD, as well as at revival showings at theaters.
Both remain topics of film journal essays.
Are the cynics right? Is a movie's reputation mostly a matter of marketing, of packaging, of its distribution channels. . .?
Give the Halls French dialogue with English subtitles. Show their movie on the art house and festival circuit. Dub that foreign art film into English and peddle it to drive-ins and late night TV shows. Jean-Luc Godard might be recognized today only as a European precursor to Ray Steckler, with "Breathless" nothing more than the French "Wild Guitar"!