The Phynx

The Phynx (1970)

Runtime: 86 minutes (not 81 as most sources claim)

Directed by: Lee H. Katzin

“Starring”: Michael D. Miller, Ray Chippeway, Dennis Larden, Lonny Stevens, plus an astounding array of cameos

From: Warner Brothers

First off, I don’t have any Oscar comments as I didn’t really pay attention to the show too closely, except congrats to Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker for winning Oscars, as (without seeing too many of the nominees) it’s well-deserved. It’ll now get more of an audience than I thought it would at the time. I mean, I did not expect it to win Academy Awards, but it’s great that it did. Now onto something that is very far from the stratosphere of the Academy Awards…

If I’d tell you that there was a movie which included cameos from the likes of Jay Silverheels (the guy who played Tonto on The Lone Ranger TV show), Dick Clark, Richard Pryor, pro boxer Joe Louis, James Brown, 30’s Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller, and Col. Sanders (!), you’d think that I would be ribbing you.

Well, I’m not.

This movie was actually filmed, it was released by a major studio, and yet it has never even made it to VHS, let alone DVD or any other format. So, how did I find it? I won’t get into it, but I know it went to TV and the copy I acquired is of a TV broadcast of the film.

This was during the period of time when Hollywood tried to appeal to the counterculture that was prevalent at the time, and they made movies that are generally considered to be awful; the ones I’ve seen besides this are the bizarre Myra Breckenridge and the awful attempt at humor known as Skidoo, which is one of the worst comedies I’ve ever seen due to the fact that it’s entirely laughless. But, I’ll talk about that film at another time. All three of these have in common the fact that it has old veterans trying to be “hip” by appearing in something designed for the pot and tab-ingesting youths of the day, and well, it didn’t work.

Here’s a brief yet detailed description of the film, but here’s what I have to say about it: I didn’t think it was THAT bad! It’s like your parents trying to make a movie which reflects the Internet/Facebook/Twitter/YouTube culture. It just doesn’t work. BUT, it at least has amusing moments/lines (more than one or two, in fact), the plot isn’t incomprehensible, the song are at least ok, and while I don’t even know if this is a satire or what, it certainly isn’t one of the all-time worst, by any means.

Sure, it should’ve been a lot funnier and better with the kind of cast that they somehow were able to pull together, and apparently it was both a cash-in to appeal to the tab-ingesting youths and a satire against those same youths; there’s also strange plotting and at times it really drags. Still, compared to the similar Myra and Skidoo, it’s so silly, you can’t get too mad at it (even during the boring stretches, the dumb moments, and thinking about stuff like why Pryor’s cameo only lasts about 10 seconds and he doesn’t say anything funny at all). Myra was released on DVD in 2004 and Skidoo was put up by someone via bootleg onto a site a few years ago (which is how I saw it) then shown on TCM underground 2 years ago, but yet I'll be shocked if this ever gets any sort of public showing. That's disappointing, if only because it'd be a rather strange curio, it (may) show that it's not one of the worst of all-time, and yeah, to have a good chuckle at some of the ridiculous fashion of the time period.

Plus, to me it's rather frightening to look at the plot (a manufactured group of random people put together who really aren't all that talented musically... although I'm not sure if that was what this movie was going for; they certainly were aping The Monkees... and sorry for the bad pun) and think about how it is *so* relevant in current times with the popular music scene, boy bands, people like Britney becoming popular, goofs like Tila Tequila and Paris Hilton releasing songs/albums and yeah, it's dare I say ahead of its time in pointing that out.

I wouldn't really recommend putting in a lot of effort to find it unless you have odd tastes like me. However, you can watch the first few minutes of it here, which is pretty much the extent of streaming video footage you can find.

I'll be back with more traditional fair soon.