Scanlines
Alabama's Ghost
Fri., Jan. 1, 1999
with Karen Ingenthron, Richard Marion, E. Kerrigan Prescott
Alabama's Ghost is another installment in the triptych of films from the inept genius Fredric Hobbs (the third film is 1977's Roseland). Little is known about the Hobbs-man, except that he was (is?) an artist, sculptor, and writer, outside of doing the three movies known to hardcore aficionados of the weird. Alabama's Ghost opens with a radio broadcast regarding Nazi war criminals, a mad doctor, a magician named Carter the Great, an infectious substance called "raw zeta," and Khartoum Khaki hashish. Got that so far? OK, cut to a Dixieland band and their roadie, the jiveass black man named Alabama. Alabama runs his forklift through the wall of the club where he works, then takes a look behind the wall to find the magic kit that belonged to Carter the Great before his mysterious death. He decides that he will make a living doing magic, learns the tricks of the trade, and is soon approached by a poncey rock & roll manager who promises to make him a superstar (via worldwide satellite hookup) that will make Elvis and the Beatles combined look like a bad lounge act down at the Ramada Inn. Alabama's career skyrockets, as he performs accompanied by the rock band The Loading Zone (insert some hopelessly dorky rock songs here); he's got the money, the babes and the fame, but he's visited by the ghost of Carter the Great from time to time. Troubled by that, he visits his mom on the farm in the South, where she takes him to the local witch doctor who stitches a frog to his chest (!). The manager, it turns out, is in the sway of the aforementioned Nazi war criminal, who, along with the mad doctor (insert atrocious German accent here), is plotting to take over the world with his cult of vampire babes. His lab-OR-a-tory is equipped with a conveyor belt with women strapped to it and vampire babes to bite 'em as they go down the bloodsucker assembly line. The time comes for Alabama's big show and he cruises up in the Alabama-mobile, Hobbs' "transcontinental automotive sculpture" (a cat-turd-colored thing with various evil-looking heads sprouting up out of it), a robot Alabama is substituted, and I won't give away the ending.
Does all this sound completely insane? Well, believe me, it's quite a bit weirder than the words I can dredge up to describe it. No one can really act in this, but Hobbs nonetheless directs them to bellow out their lines in nearly every scene, so they come across like bad Shakespearean thesps. I can't figure out whether drugs played a part in Fredric Hobbs' imagination, or if he's just totally eccentric, but either way this movie and The Godmonster of Indian Flats are two of the most bizarre entries that you'll run across.
Alabama's Ghost is available solely from Just for the Hell of It Video, PO Box 19, Butler, NJ 07405
The World's Greatest Sinner
D. Timothy Carey (1961)
with Timothy Carey, Gil Baretto, Grace DeCarolis, Victor Floming, Gail Griffen
Timothy Carey may be most recognizable from his role in Stanley Kubrick's classic 1956 caper film The Killing (as Nikki, the quasi-beatnik sniper hired to shoot the racehorse), but his offstage persona was much more interesting and bizarre than his film career. According to
B-actress Marie Windsor, the dilapidated house and barn used in The Killing (when Sterling Hayden first meets Nikki for a demo of the sawed-off shotguns to be used in the robbery) was Carey's actual residence. He lived there as a complete slob, with a dingy mattress on the floor, blankets on the windows for curtains, and gallon institutional-size tomato cans for cookware. Carey was also a notorious lush, with a definite Jekyll-and-Hyde syndrome; allegedly, he would drink until completely stinko, go on a crying jag, then suddenly snap and beat the tar out of whomever happened to be nearby. The World's Greatest Sinner, then, is Carey's only directorial effort, and bears the stamp of a crazed genius in direction and story both.
Carey plays Clarence Hilliard, an unfulfilled, middle-aged insurance exec who becomes bored with his lot in life and decides the insurance biz is no longer for him. He leaves in grand style; when customers are referred to him over the phone, he tells them, "Oh, I wouldn't waste my money on insurance. When you die, your body starts to stink, and they bury you for free." He then gives the entire office staff the day off, to his boss' chagrin. During his come-in-my-office-and-shut-the-door hot-seat session with el jefe, Hilliard reiterates his change of heart about insurance and the two bid each other a not-so-fond adieu. He then goes home to drunkenly ramble to his wife (who clearly wishes he'd just shut the hell up and go to bed), and then his horse and dog, of his grand vision, of man being capable of much more than ever believed possible, of a world where every man and woman is a god and eternal life is within easy grasp. Seeing himself as a new messiah, he renames himself God Hilliard, buys a flashy gold suit, and decides that rock & roll is his new vehicle to bring his message to the masses. He puts together a band consisting mainly of sax players (surprisingly, one is female) and takes it on the road; onstage he shimmies and vibrates like a palsied Elvis while bashing away on a cheap guitar. His Crisco-groomed hair falls down in his face Jerry Lee Lewis-style as he drops to the floor and flops around doing the Fried Egg for his manic fans. He becomes an overnight sensation as he bellows his message of the Eternal Man to frenzied audiences and blasts out some one-chord caveman rock (composed by Frank Zappa!) while boasting a faux triangular soul-patch beard. Riots break out at his shows as he exhorts audiences to be responsible to no one but themselves, and he shags like crazy with every babe who comes his way. When he's approached by a Dick Morris-type who urges him to put down his guitar and get serious about politics, soon Hilliard abandons his wife and kids for the road to the White House. He evolves into a sort of fascist political evangelist who never specifies how he and his followers will reach immortality, and never has to since his words are seductive enough by themselves. In one of the movie's most unsettling moments, he has a heavy make-out scene with a lady in (at least) her late 60s after she agrees to donate her life savings to his campaign. Eventually, though, his house of cards begins to collapse as his faith in his own beliefs begins to erode and he implores God to give him a sign of some sort.
Far ahead of its time, The World's Greatest Sinner is a disturbing reflection on religion, politics, and fascism; the Manson-like aspects of Hilliard's character are all too apparent to today's audiences. Carey is supremely creepy in his role as the greasy Hilliard; almost every line is delivered straight from the diaphragm, but filtered through a bottle of bourbon first (actually, subtitles would be handy at times) as he slurs his way through at full-cry. Words like "offbeat" are far too mild for this disconcertingly sleazy and base idiot-savant oddity that I cannot recommend highly enough for fans of the bizarre. (Note: Ray Dennis Steckler was one of the cameramen) --Jerry Renshaw
