Bucket of Blood

THAT GUY DICK MILLER: putting the “character” in “character actor”

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Photo caption: THAT GUY DICK MILLER

The entertaining documentary That Guy Dick Miller is about an actor whose name you may not place, but that you’ve seen. It’s a straight-ahead documentary about a delightfully offbeat guy.

Dick Miller amassed 184 screen credits as a protégé of legendary independent filmmaker and schlockmeister Roger Corman.  Along the way, he rubbed shoulders with indie film icons Jack Nicholson, Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino.

Miller’s career started in 1955 as an Indian in the Roger Corman-directed Western Apache Woman and then Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors, The Terror, The Wild Angels and The Trip. Continuing as the king of the low budget movies, Miller went on to work for a second generation of Corman acolyte directors and then plunged full throttle into horror films.  Miller was the unfortunate Murray Futterman in Gremlins and Uncle Willie in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight.

On the screen and off, Dick Miller was glib and Bronx-accented, the quintessential wiseacre. In That Guy Dick Miller, we get to meet Miller and his wife Lainey; it’s clear the the two of them were lots of fun to be around. Irresistibly a card, Miller is even bawdy when he recalls his appearance in Night Call Nurses, a 1972 sexploitation film (that I actually saw in a drive-in 1972). 

On screen, Miller always swung for the fences, no matter how small the part.  Lots of actors play the ticket-taker or the security guard, but it’s Dick Miller that you remember for those minuscule roles.

Dick Miller as Walter Paisley, getting smooched in A BUCKET OF BLOOD

Miller is most well known for the lead character, Walter Paisley, in the beatnik-flavored cult film A Bucket of Blood. Miller appeared over ten more times as different characters named with some version of Walter Paisley. In fact, his final role was as Rabbi Walter Paisley in Hannukah, which opened after his death in 2019.

That Guy Dick Miller was recommended to me by Sandy Wolf, who had screened it as a Cinequest submission. However, That Guy Dick Miller premiered at SXSW instead of at Cinequest.

That Guy Dick Miller can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime).

Movies to See Right Now

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JOJO RABBIT

Now is the time we’ve all been waiting for – the year’s very best movies are coming out in waves. Parasite, Jojo Rabbit and Pain and Glory will make their share of Top Ten lists; (I saw Parasite at its first Silicon Valley screening Thursday night and will write about it soon). The Irishman and Marriage Story are coming next weekend – so see at least two movies in theaters this weekend to stay current.

OUT NOW

  • Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
  • In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • It’s tough to imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy the biodoc Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, about the first female mega rock star. 
  • Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is last year’s best movie – the unforgettable coming of age film Leave No Trace. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie star as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting.  Leave No Trace is available for streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Here are two very different 1950s films coming up this week on Turner Classic Movies. On October 30, there’s the campy Bucket of Blood – it’s most interesting as a time capsule of the Beatnik Era.

And on October 28, TCM brings us A Place in the Sun: One of the great films of the 1950s.  Montgomery Clift is a poor kid who is satisfied to have a job and a trashy girlfriend (Shelly Winters in a brilliant portrayal).  Then, he learns that he could have it all – the CEO’s daughter Elizabeth Taylor, lifelong comfort, status and career.  Did I mention Elizabeth Taylor?  The now pregnant girlfriend is the only obstacle to more than he could have ever dreamed for – can he get rid of her without getting caught?

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A PLACE IN THE SUN

coming up on TV – A BUCKET OF BLOOD: time capsule from the Beatnik Era

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hip cats digging it in A BUCKET OF BLOOD

A Bucket of Blood is a campy, minor horror film from 1959, but it’s most interesting as window into beatnik culture.  Turner Classic Movies will air A Bucket of Blood on May 13.

In 1959, the Beat Movement had been alive for a decade, but had just begun to be recognized by the mainstream culture.  Beatniks, before the usage of that word, had been glimpsed in the 1950 classic noir D.O.A. and in 1957’s Roman Holiday.   The word “beatnik”, usually a pejorative used by squares, was resisted by the Beat generation artists and thinkers.  According to Wikipedia, the term was coined by Herb Caen in his San Francisco Chronicle column of  April 2, 1958. Of course, the popular stereotype of a Beatnik stems from the character of Maynard G. Krebs (played by Bob Denver of later Gilligan fame) on TV’s Dobie Gillis (1959-63).

By 1959, beatnik consciousness was ripe for exploitation by low-budget movie wizard Roger Corman, who produced and directed A Bucket of Blood.  The story is about a loser who covers a dead cat with plaster of Paris and is acclaimed as a talented sculptor.  He embraces the hoax and starts hunting victims to cast into human “sculptures”; hence the horror and the bucket of blood.

“Beatnik” conjures up 20-somethings adorned in black turtleneck sweaters (and black leotards for women), berets, goatees and dark glasses; they’re in coffee houses snapping their fingers to applaud poetry and jazz.  And they’re conversing in hip cat patter.  Watch A Bucket of Blood and you’ll get a dose.

Can you dig it?

[Ubiquitous game show host Burt Convy, as a young actor, played Lou in A Bucket of Blood.]

Movies to See Right Now

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CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

If you can make it to Cinequest, there are some great movie choices, including Sunday night’s Clouds of Sils Maria with Kristin Stewart (who won the Supporting Actress Cesar – the French Oscar) and Juliette Binoche.  Here is my extensive Cinequest coverage.

The Oscars have come and gone, leaving these choices in theaters and elsewhere:

  • Clint Eastwood’s thoughtful and compelling American Sniper, with harrowing action and a career-best performance from Bradley Cooper.
  • The inspiring Selma, well-crafted and gripping throughout (but with an unfortunate historical depiction of LBJ).
  • The cinematically important and very funny (and, of course. Oscar-winning) Birdman.
  • The Theory of Everything is a successful, audience-friendly biopic of both Mr. AND Mrs. Genius.
  • Julianne Moore’s superb performance is the only reason to see Still Alice;
  • The Imitation Game – the riveting true story about the guy who invented the computer and defeated the Nazis and was then hounded for his homosexuality.
  • And the movie that is better than all of these:  Boyhood. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Here are some great choices for movies coming up on TV this week – all on Turner Classic Movies:

  • The Narrow Margin (February 28): This overlooked film noir masterpiece is a taut 71 minutes of tension. Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train. Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target.
  • Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
    Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (March 3): This romantic French musical is notable for three things: 1) the actors sing all of the dialogue; 2) the breakout performance by then 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve; and 3) an epilogue scene at a gas station – one of the great weepers in cinema history.
  • Spider Baby (March 4): This campy horror flick ain’t good, but it’s entertaining. Lon Chaney, Jr., passes the horror torch to Sid Haig.  Also on March 4, TCM is bringing us one of the silliest of mutant monster movies, Night of the Lepus (thundering herds of giant killer rabbits) along with Bucket of Blood, a serial killer movie that is a time capsule of beatnik culture.