As we mentioned back here, this weblog has only three missions in life. They're not about stopping Global Warming or the War in Iraq or any of those unimportant, easy crusades. Anyone can do stuff like that. No, we tackle the vital issues of the day which are, of course…
- Get the Souplantation to add their Creamy Tomato Soup to their regular line-up.
- Get the Cadbury Adams Gum Company to bring back Adams Sour Orange Gum.
- Get Skidoo released on DVD.
So far, we've had limited success with #1. The Creamy Tomato Soup is back at Souplantation but only for the month of March. (We trust you're websurfing via wireless connection from some Souplantation while eating this scrumptious Creamy Tomato Soup. That's where I'm posting from until April Fool's Day. I'm at one right this minute, happily regaining much of the weight I've lost in the last nine months.)
There's been no movement on #2 so we've decided to focus our energies on #3: A legal, Kosher release of easily the oddest motion picture ever to be directed by an Oscar-nominated (though not for this) director and released by a major motion picture studio. You want to know how strange this movie is? The three minute chunk you'll see in today's video link, which is from the opening of the film, is the most coherent part.
I am told that Paramount Home Video, which I once urged here to show some moxie and put this thing out on DVD, is powerless to act; that the estate of director Otto Preminger controls the 1968 film and won't let it out. I think they're making a big mistake. If you try and suppress Skidoo, three things will happen. One is that it'll still be around but the bootleggers will make the money instead of the estate. Secondly, the movie will be seen only via crummy prints that will harm its reputation. And lastly and most significantly, people will think of this movie as something that Otto must have been ashamed of and will therefore view it the wrong frame of mind.
It only works if you presume that Mr. Preminger — a skilled filmmaker, as he proved so many times in his career — knew exactly what he was doing and made exactly the film he intended to make, and that his intention all along was to create something no sentient human being could ever understand. The very same year, Stanley Kubrick tried to achieve the same goal in 2001, but he failed by not casting Groucho Marx as God or Jackie Gleason as a mobster who trips out on LSD.
Here's three minutes of Skidoo with Gleason, Carol Channing and Arnold Stang. While you watch it, I'm going back to get more of the Creamy Tomato Soup and maybe another slice of the Garlic Asiago Focaccia. Come to think of it, I believe there's an actress in this movie named Garlic Asiago Focaccia…
