Here's To The Ladies Who Lunge Part Two: The Purple World of William Conrad
Hi Everybody and welcome back!
Let me start this week’s post by talking a bit about actor/director/producer William Conrad, and those films I only mentioned briefly in last week’s post. The fabulous canon of Conrad pulp that I referred to last week was produced for Warner Brothers in quick succession from 1965 to 1968. Starting with two rather subdued entries—well, subdued isn’t the most appropriate word for titles like Two On a Guillotine and My Blood Runs Cold—the latter, by the way, needs to be seen if only to discover and delight in Jeanette Nolan’s insane array of absurdly braided wiglets. Even though, actor Troy Donahue slows things down to a crawl as the least imposing psycho imaginable. Ms. Nolan’s carousel of hairstyles spins just as out of control as as the merry-go-round does at the end of Strangers on a Train. But, these two films are just a prelude to films like Brainstorm and The Cool Ones. Both are captivating in the ways they take delight in dizzy antics from two polar opposite directions. Brainstorm is a crazy mediation on madness and The Cool Ones, a kinetic stunner of delirious pop pulp vitality. The last of the greats of his purplish lot, is a film called Chubasco which somehow manages to blend a queer mix of just about every genre into a big puddle of male melodrama and testosterone.
But, I digress.
I should note here that Conrad was also responsible for producing Robert Altman’s first film, Countdown. A film that feels like an experiment signaling in the beginning of what Altman would come to perfect over the next three years. But, this particular collaboration must have been an unhappy one. Altman’s overlapping dialogue makes naturalism look far too stylized and unnatural. Conrad, at his best, is a master of hyper realism, not naturalism.
Which leads me to this side note, It’s interesting to realize that Conrad was one of the few principal actors who survived 1956’s Howard Hughes epic, The Conqueror—a film notorious for having several cast members ultimately die of radiation poisoning after having significant sections of it shot on bomb site locations.
To make a point, I thought I’d revisit a bit of depressing cinematic history via wikipedia that’s sure to raise an eyebrow if you happen to be unfamiliar with it.
I’m quoting here...
“The cast and crew totaled 220 people. By the end of 1980, as ascertained by People magazine, 91 of these had developed some form of cancer and 46 had died of the disease. Several of Wayne and Hayward's relatives who visited the set also had cancer scares. Michael Wayne developed skin cancer, his brother Patrick had a benign tumor removed from his breast, and Hayward's son, Tim Barker, had a benign tumor removed from his mouth.
Reportedly, Hughes felt guilty about his decisions regarding the film's production, particularly over the decision to film at a hazardous site. He bought every print of the film for $12 million and kept it out of circulation for many years until Universal Pictures purchased the film from his estate in 1979. The Conqueror, along with Ice Station Zebra, is said to be one of the films Hughes watched endlessly during his last years.
Dr. Robert Pendleton, then a professor of biology at the University of Utah, is reported to have stated in 1980, "With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91 cancer cases, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law." Several cast and crew members, as well as relatives of those who died, considered suing the government for negligence, claiming it knew more about the hazards in the area than it let on.”
Hmmm…
It’s a crazy supposition, I know. But, is it possible that The Conqueror and it’s creepy aftermath might have contributed to the vertiginous aspect of Conrad’s obsession with the more garish colors of American Pop culture?
Just sayin’...
Which brings me once again to his wild adaptation of Norman Mailer’s serialized fever dream of a novel, An American Dream—which weighs in for me as the perfect example of a film edging itself towards orgasm—and the little death that follows takes itself quite seriously.
Oh, dear...I promised to pick up from where last week’s cliff hanger ended! I won’t fail to deliver this week. Just tighten your seatbelt for the ride ahead.
Be Well…
And remain engaged.
