Thanks to a string of highly publicized hits like “Exodus” and his appearances as Mr. Freeze on the “Batman” TV series, Otto Preminger was probably the best-known director in America when he released his most notorious flop, “Skidoo” in late 1968. When it finally reached New York three months later (on a double bill with Jules Dassin’s “Up Tight!”) Vincent Canby of The Times, a longtime admirer of the director, famously dismissed “Skidoo” as “something only for Preminger-watchers or those whose minds need pressing by a large, flat object.”
“Skidoo,” which has been notoriously difficult to see for decades, is finally receiving its first video release on DVD release next Tuesday, one of several Preminger films licensed from Paramount by Olive Films. The stiff direction, unfunny script and the all-star parade of aging, muggging celebrities are bad in ways that still exert a certain train-wreck fascination. Morever, the film provides a window into just how desperate Hollywood was to tap into the “billion dollar youth market” — as a line of dialogue in the film actually puts it — in the late 1960s.
Nowhere else can you see Jackie Gleason take an LSD trip and Groucho Marx (in his final screen appearance at age 78) blissfully toke on a joint, all in a film with a score by Harry Nilsson, costumes by Rudi Gernrich and cinematography by…Technicolor artist Leon Shamroy, who had won three Oscars and was nominated for 11 others (he had just finished “Planet of the Apes”).
The film was an indirect result of the success of the Pearl Harbor epic “In Harm’s Way” (seen in the opening scene as Gleason complains how it’s been edited for TV) which prompted Paramount to sign Preminger to a multiple-picture contract that, according to a recent biography by Chris Fujiwara, allowed him to make several “personal” projects of his choosing without any studio input at all as long as they fell within certain budget parameters. The contract also required one film a year, and when another project fell through, Preminger seized on one one of two offbeat, youth-oriented scripts presented him by a young writer named William Doran Cannon (the other one was made by Robert Altman as “Brewster McCloud”).
Then Paramount-chief Robert Evans writes in his memoirs that he tried to talk Preminger out of “Skidoo,” a comedy about a culture clash between gangster and hippies, but the director insisted on his contractual rights. Jackie Gleason, as a long-retired gangster, is improbably paired with Carol Channing (who had just been Oscar nominated for “Thoroughly Modern Millie”) as his wife. They become concerned when their daughter becomes involved with an Indian-garbed hippie named Stash. Preminger’s idea was to re-team two young actors he had signed to contracts for his most recent film, the critically savaged flop “Hurry, Sundown” (recently released by Olive) in these roles. John Phillip Law (fresh from “Barbarella”) went along with this, but Faye Dunaway refused, was sued by Preminger and they settled out of court. She was replaced by Alexandra Hay.
The wacky plot has Gleason visited by a former associate (Cesar Romero) and his horndog son (Frankie Avalon with a moustache) who tell Gleason that his former boss, referred to only as “God” (Marx in a role that reportedly had been turned down by Frank Sinatra, Rod Steiger, Zero Mostel, Anthony Quinn, Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Quinn and Senator Everett Dirksen) wants Gleason to rub out a jailed mobster (Mickey Rooney) who is going to testify before a congressional committee headed by Peter Lawford.
“God” has Gleason’s daughter — who may have been actually fathered by murdered pal Arnold Stang — and boyfriend kidnapped and taken to the yacht (actually John Wayne’s real-life yacht) where he lives with his mistress (Andy Warhol star Luna) and which is skippered by George Raft.
When Gleason arrives at Alcatraz to take out Rooney with the assistance of Frank Gorshin — Burgess Meredith, like Gorshin, Romero and Preminger a former “Batman” villain, is the warden — things really get wiggy. Gleason accidentally ingests LSD belonging to cellmate Austin Pendleton. Preminger reportedly drew on his own experiences with acid under the supervision under Dr. Timothy Leary, and I can’t even begin to describe what this sequence is like (though this frame grab will give you some idea).
Later Gleason, Pendleton and cellmate Michael Constantine sneak LSD into the prison food. Guards played by Fred Clark (who died before the film’s release) and Nilsson imagine a psychedelic ballet performed with garbage cans and smile happily as our heroes escape in a balloon crafted from plastic bags.
It all ends on God’s yacht, where the balloon arrives simulataneously with a flotilla commandered by Law’s hippie pals. The fiftysomething Channing sings the title song in a mini-skirt (she does an earlier scene in bra and panties), there are a couple of weddings, and God smokes dope in a sailboat with Austin Pendleton. Both are dressed as Hare Krisnas.
Then we hear Preminger’s Teutonic tones on the soundtrack, commanding us to stay while Harry Nilsson ….sings the closing credits, complete with the copyright notice.
It may sound like I’m giving too much away. But no, “Skidoo” really has to be seen to be believed. Such was Preminger’s reputation that he actually found backing for four movies after this — two for Paramount — and all of them critical and financial disasters.
Today’s new releases at the Warner Archive Collection include these noirs: Richard Fleischer’s “Follow Me Quietly” (1949) with William Ludigan, Felix Feist’s “The Threat” (1949) starring Charles McGraw, Frank McDonald’s “The Purple Gang” (1959) with Robert Blake and Budd Boetticher’s “The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond” starring Ray Danton. Plus Tay Garnett’s Korean War drama “One Minute to Zero” with Robert Mitchum and Ann Blyth. They are all on sale for $15 bucks — WAC’s new releases are usually $20 -with nearly 80 other previously released crime titles.
WAC is also taking pre-orders for “The Lucille Ball RKO Comedy Collection,” which will be released on Aug. 2, four days before her 100th birthday. The best-known title is Allan Dwan’s “Look Who’s Laughing,” a fantastically successful 1941 vehicle for radio comedians Fibber McGee and Molly (Jim and Marion Jordan), The Great Gildersleeve (Harold Peary) and Edgar Bergen, whose secretary Ball plays. The other disc in the set features a couple of 1938 B-pictures, Garson Kanin’s “Next Time I Marry” co-starring James Ellison and Lee Bowman and “Go Chase Yourself,” a vehicle for radio comedian Joe Penner.
On the Blu-ray front, Warner Home Video will debut Lewis Milestone’s 1962 version of “Mutiny on the Bounty” starring Marlon Brando on Nov. 8. Mervyn LeRoy’s thriller “The Bad Seed” (1956) with Patty McCormack and Nancy Kelly, will arrive on the high-definition format on Oct. 11. Paramount has finally announced a street date for its 50th edition Blu-ray of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” on Sept. 20.
