Here's a blast from my past. Back in the sixties, I was the president of an entity known as the Los Angeles Comic Book Club. We billed ourselves as "the largest comic book club in the world" because we didn't know of any others. Every Saturday afternoon, we convened in a meeting room at a public park, the Palms Recreation Center in West L.A. I've written about this club in a number of my essays on the world of comics.
I don't think I mentioned in any of them that there was another club at Palms Park for much of the same time — officially unaffiliated but full of a lot of the same folks and run by some L.A.C.B.C. members — mainly Barry Siegel and Bruce Simon. This was the Old Time Movie Club which met on some (not all) Friday evenings. Sometimes, they showed 8mm silent movies from the personal collections of members. Dues were collected at those meetings and when there was enough in the treasury, they'd use the dough to rent a 16mm print of some great sound film. The evening I recall best was when they ran the Laurel and Hardy film, Our Relations. The place was packed and I don't recall ever being in an audience where as many people were convulsed with laughter.
The leaders of the club not only showed silent films, they also made them. Barry, then 17 years of age, made the first one and it starred him, Bruce, a bevy of L.A.C.B.C. members…and, briefly, me. He recently posted Spats and Splats — an ode to the joy of spitting on other people — on YouTube.
The film was shot in 8mm over two days in 1970 — early in the year, as I recall. There were scenes shot at Barry's house, at Palms Park and out by some abandoned buildings out by the ocean in Santa Monica. Barry had, of course, no permits to film in the latter two locations so out in Santa Monica, we were chased by a security guard. You'll see some shots of the old Pacific Ocean Park (a seaside amusement park) and the Aragon Ballroom, which is where Lawrence Welk did his show for years. It had all burned down a year or so earlier, probably because Barry needed the visual of some ruins for his film.
Steve Sherman, who was later my partner working for Jack Kirby, was an actor in it but he was also the Director of Photography, which means he ran the camera. One of the toughest problems Barry had to solve was finding black-and-white 8mm film for that camera. Color stock could be purchased at any drugstore…but he felt an old-style silent movie had to be monochrome and it took a while to locate a supply. The title cards were done by a mail order company run by someone named Jack B. Hardy.
In it, you will see a young skinny M.E. making my film debut as the Hamburger Vendor. I botched things up on my first take…and as it turned out, that was the only take. That security guard was threatening to call the cops on us so we had to hurry. Thus, my flawed performance had to stay in. Barry did not use me on camera in his subsequent cinematic efforts and I don't blame him one bit.
In addition to making films, Siegel and Simon produced some popular underground comics. I don't think it's been released yet but a few months ago, it was announced that a publisher was bringing out a collection of their strip, Blackwall Siegel. Blackwall was a character based loosely on Barry's dog, Blackwell…and you can see the actual pooch playing himself in a brief cameo in the film. I'm ashamed to admit he was a better performer than I was.
If you'll promise to keep in mind that we were all teenagers, I'll let you click on the little arrow and watch Spats and Splats. The Academy Award that year went to Patton but only because Barry forgot to submit his film. If he had, I'd guess a minimum of eight Oscars including Best Supporting Actor to Blackwell…