Runtime: 95 minutes
Directed by: Richard L.
Bare (no, this is not an adult movie I saw & this guy is not an
adult movie director)
Starring: David Bailey,
Tiffany Boiling, Randolph Roberts, Scott Brady, Edd Byrnes
From: MGM
What a unique gimmick this motion picture has:
Brian
De Palma, eat your heart out! At least I imagine that is what some
people involved with this movie thought. While De Palma's Sisters had a
few scenes of split screen, Wicked, Wicked-from some dude named Richard
L. Bare who despite his name was not in the adult industry-was filmed
entirely in “Duo-Vision”, meaning that except for some widescreen
moments, two images are on the screen at the same time and the
soundtrack is stereo, usually divided into two distinct channels
depending on what's happening in the film. The fact that probably many
film fans have never heard of the movie or “Duo-Vision” does accurately
show how well the release went, which was: not well at all so no one
since has tried to do something else like the split screen gimmick for
an entire film... unfortunately.
The plot of Wicked, Wicked-think a Hitchcock pastiche. The killer is a weird loner who has mom issues due to his childhood and he kills blondes... see what I mean? It's even set at a hotel, although this one is a seaside resort in California. The movie makes it obvious early on who the villain is, although it takes the other characters a real long time to figure it out in this leisurely paced flick. That includes the hotel security guard Rick Stewart, who would rather gawk at his ex than try to crack the case. In 2019, yikes at Stewart being an ex-cop who... loses his job because he shoots & kills an innocent black man!
The characters tend to be on the hostile side yet I'll say this is fine overall; for certain, the gimmick helps elevate this, although not always. At least to me it was always interesting and helps tart up what would have been a forgotten 70's mystery picture otherwise. Sometimes it shows alternate angles, sometimes you get to see the victim and the killer at the same time, a few times it's flashback and present time concurrently, and even a character explaining something false and the other side shows what actually happened.
Various things pad out the runtime, including a kooky old lady known as Mrs. Carradine and Rick's ex happens to sing at the hotel and she has a few musical numbers. Speaking of music, for some reason the score was... the score to the Lon Chaney The Phantom of the Opera. I guess that shooting a movie like this was time-consuming and complicated so lifting music from another picture is sort of understandable, even if it doesn't always seem to fit. I'll also presume that they needed more coverage so that is why occasionally you see a random unidentified old woman playing the score on an organ.
It is a shame this idea never took off; others could have been real creative with the concept and done something unique with it that really benefited from the split screen process; I'd love to see someone try this in these modern times.
The plot of Wicked, Wicked-think a Hitchcock pastiche. The killer is a weird loner who has mom issues due to his childhood and he kills blondes... see what I mean? It's even set at a hotel, although this one is a seaside resort in California. The movie makes it obvious early on who the villain is, although it takes the other characters a real long time to figure it out in this leisurely paced flick. That includes the hotel security guard Rick Stewart, who would rather gawk at his ex than try to crack the case. In 2019, yikes at Stewart being an ex-cop who... loses his job because he shoots & kills an innocent black man!
The characters tend to be on the hostile side yet I'll say this is fine overall; for certain, the gimmick helps elevate this, although not always. At least to me it was always interesting and helps tart up what would have been a forgotten 70's mystery picture otherwise. Sometimes it shows alternate angles, sometimes you get to see the victim and the killer at the same time, a few times it's flashback and present time concurrently, and even a character explaining something false and the other side shows what actually happened.
Various things pad out the runtime, including a kooky old lady known as Mrs. Carradine and Rick's ex happens to sing at the hotel and she has a few musical numbers. Speaking of music, for some reason the score was... the score to the Lon Chaney The Phantom of the Opera. I guess that shooting a movie like this was time-consuming and complicated so lifting music from another picture is sort of understandable, even if it doesn't always seem to fit. I'll also presume that they needed more coverage so that is why occasionally you see a random unidentified old woman playing the score on an organ.
It is a shame this idea never took off; others could have been real creative with the concept and done something unique with it that really benefited from the split screen process; I'd love to see someone try this in these modern times.
No comments:
Post a Comment