Cult Movies 3 – Danny Peary, 1988 ★★★

Movies to Shave Your Head For

What is a “cult movie”? Is it merely any film that wins a devoted, substantial fan following? Or does it imply content outside the norm, perhaps transgressive? Does “cult” status preclude mainstream success, or can a box-office smash be a cult movie, too? If I sound confused, it’s because I am, even after multiple readings of this, the third and final installment of a series of books by noted film critic Danny Peary.

In Cult Movies and Cult Movies 2, Peary individually examined in essay form dozens of films across a span of time and genres that, in his view, merit the title “cult movie.” Fifty more flicks are scrutinized here.

You get silents (The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari and Napoleon), comedies (Sons Of The Desert, Dr. Strangelove, Annie Hall), science fiction (The Thing, Blade Runner, The Road Warrior), and westerns (Ride The High Country, One-Eyed Jacks). Works of great directors are also profiled, like Orson Welles (Touch Of Evil), John Frankenheimer (Seconds), John Ford (The Quiet Man), and Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho). There’s even room for porn (Café Flesh), James Bond (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), and that so-bad-it’s-amazing Ed Wood stinker, Glen Or Glenda.

Looking over just these titles, perhaps you understand my initial confusion. Just what is a “cult movie,” if it can encompass so much?

In his introduction, Peary explains his modus operandi:

I have attempted to present a strong cross section of cult films, from classics to sleepers to fiascos. I have included critics’ favorites, personal favorites, video favorites, and films that readers of the earlier books have suggested I write about. Some of these films were smash hits when initially released, eventually faded away, and later remembered as objects of cult adoration; others have never emerged from obscurity…

To be sure, the landscape of film had changed from 1981, when Peary published his first volume. Video by now had exploded as a movie fan platform perhaps most favored by cultists. Peary still writes of repertory theaters/revival houses, and bemoans how the college film circuit foregoes Fellini and Bergman for low-brow Russ Meyer flicks.

Peary writes that the 1920 German expressionist film The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari was not only a milestone of horror film but "the first cult movie." Image from https://www.eastman.org/event/film-screenings/cabinet-dr-caligari-0.  

Today, the internet offers a principal outlet, not to mention virtual conversation pit, for cult movie enthusiasts. There is even a website devoted to Peary’s work, FilmFanatic.org. Thus a promoter of cult movies now enjoys his own cult following. (Peary, alas, seems to have moved on to writing about his other passion, sports, though he still posts online movie content, too.)

I’m still not answering the question. Perhaps there is no catch-all answer. About all I can glean from reading this book, which I’ve done several times over the last 30 years, is that a cult movie is something you can write an essay about without repeating yourself, which Peary does very well. His definition of “cult movie” may be hopelessly naff, but his ability to bore in on what makes a film interesting, and across a wide spectrum of themes and famous names, commands respect.

Here he is on the classic 1955 Robert Mitchum film, The Night of The Hunter, after noting how director Charles Laughton hated children and allegedly declined to coach his juvenile stars:

So it’s remarkable that few films in history convey more heartfelt empathy toward helpless little children than The Night Of The Hunter, and few have more insight into the cruel, dangerous, frightening world of young children, particularly orphans.

His takes are often personal, sometimes painfully so. Writing about 1984’s The Terminator, Peary spends much of his essay tendentiously bemoaning the Reagan era and the idea that a man-against-machine action film ends with a machine crushing the villain. Sometimes he champions an obscurity, say 1982’s Chilly Scenes Of Winter, in a way that feels forced and based more on his positive interactions with the people who made it than anything concrete.

But then you get a jewel like his take on Psycho, which he recalls seeing in a theater for the first time as a youngster, and feeling a sense of voyeuristic guilt that uncomfortably connected him to the title villain:

While watching the film, with all that exciting sex and horrific violence and the psychiatrist’s endless revelations about the perverse relationship between Norman and his mother (we were happy to have this scene, which today seems dull, to regain our composure) we knew it wasn’t kiddie material – we knew we were getting away with seeing something meant for adults, and we felt guilty about it.

Peary’s ardent enthusiasm can be infectious. I found it so when I went out of my way some 30 years ago to track down one of the movies showcased here, 1980’s The Stunt Man, which quickly became a personal favorite. Peary writes about the struggle of director Richard Rush in making the movie, the metaphysical concerns which define it, and the concept of director-as-God-figure which informs Peter O’Toole’s luminous supporting performance.

In a scene from The Stunt Man, Peter O'Toole's film director character, Eli Cross, explains a scene he wants to shoot to a worried Cameron (Steve Railsback). Peary's essay explains how subjective reality informs the perspective of both men, as well as the viewer. Image from http://haphazardstuff.com/the-stunt-man-1980-a-review/.

Imagine my surprise when I re-read the essay today and discovered Peary didn’t actually like it much, calling it “surprisingly boring:”

My reasons for not liking The Stunt Man, as opposed to disliking it, aren’t at all deep. For instance, I think [featured player] Steve Railsback, whom Elia Kazan recommended to Rush, is miscast. He’s properly athletic and projects paranoia well, but he was better suited as homicidal-crazy Charles Manson in the TV movie Helter Skelter than as Cameron, who’s supposed to be likable, sympathetic-crazy. Those eyes give me the creeps.

Peary goes on like this, making points weak and strong and affecting not a jot my enduring love for The Stunt Man. It’s a good writer who can keep you reading while shredding on something you like.

That’s what makes Cult Movies 3 so delightful, even if it never establishes a coherent thesis. Peary takes time to analyze each entry on its own merits, or lack of same. Sometimes his insights are pedestrian, but often there is a revelation, like why 1963’s all-star comedy It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World manages to be so enjoyable despite not being all that clever comedically, or why George Lazenby clicks in his one-time performance as James Bond in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, which enjoys a small legion of fans amid many detractors:

I’m not sure I agree with those who insist that if [Sean] Connery had played Bond it would definitely be the best of the entire Bond series…Connery’s Bond cared about the women he met and loved, but he kept his distance because he wouldn’t think of marrying and giving up future adventures and future affairs.

One of my favorite essays concerns a film Peary makes no bones about straight-up disliking, one which connects with his own counter-culture youth: 1969’s Easy Rider. Peary notes the “defeatist” film centers on the incoherent mumblings of two drug-dealing drifters who offer no positive example despite taking up the zeitgeist of the time. One, as played by Peter Fonda, gives what Peary calls “cinema’s definitive wooden acting performance:”

Fonda’s not much of an actor to begin with so it didn’t help that when Wyatt and Billy get stoned in the film, he and Hopper actually got stoned on camera rather than act as if they were stoned. It’s as if someone shot novocaine into his face.

Still, Easy Rider is an important film, and one that has definitely attracted a cult following, so Peary doesn’t just diss it but explain why it endures: Killer visuals, an intriguing western subtext, and brilliant use of period rock songs. He also likes Dennis Hopper’s direction, go figure.

Dennis Hopper waves hello to his critics. Peary writes: "Many people who see Easy Rider today consider it dated, but I don't think it was in tune with its time in 1969." Image from http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/20586/1/easy-rider-and-the-american-nightmare.

A nuanced approach to problematic cinema also defines Peary’s essay on a 1959 example touted today for its singular director, Douglas Sirk:

Imitation Of Life is impeccably made, delightfully watchable, inconsistently acted Hollywood trash, with not one but two women who will sacrifice all for their children but aren’t particularly good mothers (a soap tradition?), entangled relationships, an absurd story line, [producer] Ross Hunter gloss and glitter, fantasy lighting (Sirk and [cinematographer Russell] Metty experimented with color and texture), and stunning set design.

Reading Peary’s expansive, illuminating essays puts me in mind of why I started this book blog. Before discovering Cult Movies 3, books on film criticism I read tended to be connected to specific categories, like Bond movies or comedy. Peary’s distinct outlook and voice showed a path to explicate why something is worth exploring, as much for what it reveals about you as it does the work you are analyzing.

Author Danny Peary in a recent photo. Since moving into sports, his books have included books about baseball legends Gil Hodges and Derek Jeter, as well as three books co-authored with sportscaster Tim McCarver. Image from https://alchetron.com/Danny-Peary.

To quote from a film that would no doubt have merited inclusion in a Cult Movies tome had it not in fact been made in 1990, Metropolitan:

“I don’t read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelist’s ideas as well as the critic’s thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it’s all just made up by the author.”

Of course, that’s supposed to be funny, and very much is in the context of the wonderful Whit Stillman movie it appears in. Peary’s own comic sensibilities may be lacking (he kills every joke he reports in Annie Hall, for example), but his unalloyed enjoyment of cinema in various forms makes this a book worth reading, in parts and in whole, even if Peary never quite gets across what makes a movie “cult.”