It is sometimes difficult to tell if he is taking the movie seriously, or if he is merely pretending to take it seriously. The result is that the viewer never quite knows whether they are laughing at the movie, or with the movie. With other over-the-top campy movies of the time, such as Barbarella or The Rocky Horror Picture Show, one is always aware of the director's wink, as it were, and those movies thus have a certain archness which is entirely lacking in Dolls. The only thing that made me almost sure that I was watching parody, rather than a film that was meant to be taken seriously, is the fact that it was directed by Meyer -- but the guy had me going. There were more than a few moments when I suffered the horrifying thought that he really meant it! Had I not remembered who the director was, I'd have been convinced that the movie was genuinely, unintentionally bad. Bad beyond belief, in fact. Indeed, worthy of Ed Wood, himself!
I think that Meyer must have brought off this tour de farce by not letting his cast of pretty, modestly talented "C" list actors in on the joke. They are so relentlessly earnest, even when delivering the most appalling dialogue, in the most absurd scenes, while wearing what may be the most outrageously laughable 1970's outfits ever put on film. And I can't even begin to describe the hair! I thought I would die laughing when I saw those serious faces peering out from all that bizarre hair. And, oh, the irrational editing, the inexplicable inconsistencies of plot and character! They make Plan Nine From Outer Space seem a marvel of coherence by comparison! The movie proper concludes with an utterly improbable and incongruous scene of violence and redemption which would make Mel Gibson shudder with horror, if he got it, and this is immediately followed by a brief epilogue in which a narrator delivers what would be the most remarkably sententious, smarmy collection of verbal pap imaginable, if it were meant to be taken seriously. Altogether, it was a perfect delight. I don't think there is anything else quite like it (except for Meyer's own much cheaper porn movies, in which his scope was limited by the nature of the form.) I don't know if the IFC is going to be showing it again soon, but if you get the channel, and you haven't seen the movie, it's worth an evening to see what is probably the best bad movie ever made.
Well, this is Sunday morning, and at this point I usually post some bit of poetry which is provocative of thought or contemplation, but following the above, the transition would be a bit jarring. I can recall several works of Paul Goodman's which are both worthy poems and yet of good humor, but, alas, I've been unable to find my volume of Goodman's works. Then I recalled a piece of Richard Wilbur's which might be apropos. This particular piece might not (as
mrmustard once suggested my usual poetry posts do) count as the equivalent of church attendance (unless one accepts it as a cautionary sermon), but I hope it is enjoyed.Playboy
by Richard Wilbur
High on his stockroom ladder like a dunce
The stock-boy sits, and studies like a sage
The subject matter of one glossy page,
As lost in curves as Archemedes once.
Sometimes, without a glance, he feeds himself.
The left hand, like a mother-bird in flight,
Brings him a sandwich for a sidelong bite,
And then returns it to a dusty shelf.
What so engrosses him? The wild decor
Of this pink-papered alcove into which
A naked girl has stumbled, with its rich
Welter of pelts and pillows on the floor,
Amidst which, kneeling in a supple pose,
She lifts a goblet in her farther hand,
As if about to toast a flower-stand
Above which hovers an exploding rose
Fired from a long-necked crystal vase that rests
Upon a tassled and vermilion cloth
One taste of which would shrivel up a moth?
Or is he pondering her perfect breasts?
Nothing escapes him of her body's grace
Or of her floodlit skin, so sleek and warm
And yet so strangely like a uniform,
But what now grips his fancy in her face,
And how that cunning picture holds her still
At just that smiling instant when her soul,
Grown sweetly faint, and swept beyond control,
Consents to his inexorable will.