Tagarchief: Paul Bartel

Eating Raoul

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Paul Bartel
Written by: Paul Bartel, Richard Blackburn
Cast: Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Robert Beltran

Year / Country: 1982, USA
Running Time: 83 mins.

After directing racing flicks Death Race 2000 and Cannonball!, Paul Bartel decided to make a more personal movie. Roger Corman, who had kick-started Bartel’s career with Death Race 2000, would not finance it, so Bartel raised the 500.000 dollar himself by putting up his parents house for sale. The result was Eating Raoul, a demented comedy of sorts about Hollywood, cannibalism and weird sex. It became a sleeper hit and got good critical reviews, especially in Europe.

The story revolves around Paul and Mary Bland, a square couple living in Hollywood. The couple is played by Bartel himself and Mary Woronov, another Corman veteran. The Blands want to open up a countryside restaurant, but lack financial means. A solution presents itself in the form of a swinger (their apartment building is full of them), a lifestyle the Blands – with their refined taste – disapprove of. When this swinger accidentally dies in their apartment, they come up with a very distinctive business model: lure swingers into their apartment and murder them for their money. It becomes a great financial success.

Then Raoul from the title gets involved (played by Robert Beltran, later Star Trek Voyager actor). He is a blacksmith, who discovers their secret and wants a partnership. After not too long, Raoul becomes a big problem the Blands have to deal with. Witty lines such as: ‘We’re having a friend for dinner’ (sounds familiar?) and a couple of hilarious gags make this an enjoyable little film. If you have a taste for the bizarre (it even got dwarves and stuff), Eating Raoul is an oddity that won’t disappoint.

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Biography: Paul Bartel (1938, New York – 2000, New York) majored in theater arts at UCLA and studied film directing in Rome. After getting his first work experience with Roger Corman he directed a number of low budget cult films. He also worked as a writer and an actor. He died in 2000 from a heart attack.

Filmography: The Secret Cinema (1968, short), Naughty Nurse (1969, short), Private Parts (1972), Death Race 2000 (1975), Cannonball! (1976), Eating Raoul (1982), Not for Publication (1984), Lust in the Dust (1985), The Longshot (1986), Amazing Stories (1986/87, TV episodes), Shelf Life (1993), The Comic Strip Presents…(1993, TV episode), Clueless (1996, TV episode)

Cannonball!

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Paul Bartel
Written by: Paul Bartel, Don Simpson
Cast: David Carradine, Bill McKinney, Veronica Hamel, Gerrit Graham

Year / Country: 1976, USA
Running Time: 94 mins.

Your liking of Cannonball! aka Carquake will mainly depend on how you generally appreciate B-movies about car-racing. I personally like them a lot. Cool-ass heroes in slick cars; pretty girls; highway chase scenes; crashes; mayhem: the works. This movie is based on real illegal cross-continental road races that took place around the time this movie was made.

The seventies was a fruitful era for this type of film. In 1976, the year this movie came out, The Gumball Rally, was also released about the same topic. A year earlier, its director Paul Bartel had considerable B-movie success with the very similar film Death Race 2000 which also had David Carradine in the lead role and covered a road race through America. This is not exactly a sequel though. It’s no sci-fi for one thing and unlike Death Race 2000, it has not been produced by Roger Corman, but by Run Run Shaw (one of the Shaw Brothers). Corman does have a small cameo. So do Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante and Sylvester Stallone. The movie was written by Bartel and Don Simpson. That’s right, the now deceased Don Simpson who formed a team with Jerry Bruckheimer and made one Hollywood smash hit after another. This is the first film on his resume.

David Carradine plays Coy ‘Cannonball’ Buckman, a former convict who participates in the Trans-America Grand Prix, an illegal annual race from L.A. to New York City. The prize money for winning is 100.000 dollars, so most of the participants play any dirty trick in the book to rid themselves of the competition. The police also finds out about the race and plans to arrest all the participants. Buckman has to overcome many obstacles to reach the finish line, such as car damage, malicious competitors and hand-to-hand combat. The latter of course is no problem for David ‘Kung Fu’ Carradine, but the driving proves to be a bigger challenge. Buckman is no Frankenstein (Carradine’s character in Death Race 2000), who had a mechanical hand to shift his gears faster and who was designed to win. Buckman is not that mythological. At least it looks that way initially…

Director Bartel usually offers more satire in his films, but Cannonball! doesn’t seem to have any pretensions except to offer simple entertainment. The campy fun consists mostly of the drivers competing with each other through racing moves and fist fights. Unfortunately the lack of real excitement makes it look like a cheap cash-in on its predecessors.

Because besides its subversive character, Death Race 2000 had intriguing characters and many outrageous action scenes and dialogues. It appeared to have been made with great enthusiasm and care to provide the audience with as much entertainment as possible. And it worked. Cannonball! doesn’t really try to excel in anything. Not in the acting, the writing or the directing.

Even Carradine, an actor I normally love (to me he is the ultimate B-movie star) seems a bit out of his depth here. Some good stunts and a final scene of appropriate demolition save this from being a complete failure, but there is little to recommend it for. A shame really because all those involved did a lot of good work elsewhere. Oh well, if you’re up for a no-brainer, this flick may suit you well. Otherwise Death Race 2000 is the far better alternative.

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Biography: Paul Bartel (1938, New York – 2000, New York) majored in theater arts at UCLA and studied film directing in Rome. After getting his first work experience with Roger Corman he directed a number of low budget cult films. He also worked as a writer and an actor. He died in 2000 from a heart attack.

Filmography: The Secret Cinema (1968, short), Naughty Nurse (1969, short), Private Parts (1972), Death Race 2000 (1975), Cannonball! (1976), Eating Raoul (1982), Not for Publication (1984), Lust in the Dust (1985), The Longshot (1986), Amazing Stories (1986/87, TV episodes), Shelf Life (1993), The Comic Strip Presents…(1993, TV episode), Clueless (1996, TV episode)

Death Race 2000

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Paul Bartel
Written by: Ib Melchior (story), Robert Thom, Charles Griffith
Cast: David Carradine, Simone Griffeth, Sylvester Stallone, Mary Woronov

Year / Country: 1975, USA
Running Time: 84 mins.

A future race takes place annually whereby the contestants have to kill pedestrians to score points. This is the latest gladiator-like event to please the bloodthirsty crowd.

The main character Frankenstein (Carradine) is a great anti-hero. He’s the most popular driver due to winning a number of previous editions of the race. After losing a few limbs, he has mechanical parts fitted in him that make him an even more efficient racer. With his black cape and mask he looks like a pre-Star Wars Darth Vader. His arch rival Machine Gun Joe is portrayed by a young Sylvester Stallone, who got his name by unloading his machine gun in the audience.

This cult gem from the seventies is produced by Roger Corman, king of the B-movie cheapies. The carmageddon concept works well, and you get to enjoy the characters that go by names of Nero the Hero and Herman the German. The makers obviously had a lot of fun shooting this film, and they never forgot what they were making; a funny, violent action B-movie with some inventive dialogues and situations. Watch this film and you’ll have a great time for sure!

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Biography: Paul Bartel (1938, New York – 2000, New York) majored in theater arts at UCLA and studied film directing in Rome. After getting his first work experience with Roger Corman he directed a number of low budget cult films. He also worked as a writer and an actor. He died in 2000 from a heart attack.

Filmography: The Secret Cinema (1968, short), Naughty Nurse (1969, short), Private Parts (1972), Death Race 2000 (1975), Cannonball! (1976), Eating Raoul (1982), Not for Publication (1984), Lust in the Dust (1985), The Longshot (1986), Amazing Stories (1986/87, TV episodes), Shelf Life (1993), The Comic Strip Presents…(1993, TV episode), Clueless (1996, TV episode)