"Hey Pete! Weren’t you supposed to be doing old film-fave reviews? Y’know, for example, reviews plural. Last we heard was Went the Day Well! Which nobody ever mentioned if they’d seen it or liked the film or not, incidentally.”“Ahh, yes. Right. Um, here’s another. I guess…”
Recent cinema-goers may have seen J. J. Abrams attempt to evoke nostalgia for a small-town childhood steeped in monster movies filtered through his own Spielberg worship, an attempt that failed due to the film plumping for a special effects mess of a hi-tech monster, the clumsy pilfering of almost all of Spielberg’s beats and a characterless script filled with kids whom you wanted to beat to death with iron bars. (Though ironically the kids’ film you finally get to see during the end credits was immeasurably more charming.)
Fortunate then that somebody did the entire paean to the innocent age of childhood-cinema better already. The man’s name is Joe Dante (Gremlins, The Howling, Inner Space, Piranha) and his film ‘Matinee’ is something of an unfairly forgotten classic.
It kicks off with a trailer featuring Alfred Hitchcock all in silhouette introducing his new film. Hitchcock? No, not Hitchcock; rather Lawrence Woolsey, master-showman of the monster movie circuit and a man not afraid to have pretensions. Woolsey, superbly played by John Goodman, is a hack director of early 60’s monster movies and is no novice at the art of shameless self promotion. Here he pitches his latest masterpiece, “MANT!” filmed in glorious Atomo-Vision and delivered to you, the Cold War spooked public, via quake-inducing Rumble-Rama. Because y’see, Woolsey knows that to put the bums on the seats you’ve got to have something special. Knowing full well that 3D is old-hat and out of favour with discerning audiences, never to make a return, Woolsey brings a more extreme bag of tricks to the big screen. And sitting wide-eyed in front of this trailer (shamelessly using stock footage of atomic tests) is one young kid by the name of Gene Loomis.
Gene can’t wait to see this film. “Half man! Half ant! ALL TERROR!” He’s got posters of Lon Chaney, Lugosi and Karloff plastered over his walls and knows a staggering amount of monster movie trivia. Most exciting of all is his knowledge that the great auteur, Lawrence Woolsey himself, will be opening the film in town. And this excitement allows him to bury within the real fear that’s haunting him, the fear for his father who is out there on one of the blockading US destroyers, waiting off the Cuban shore, waiting and hoping for those Russian ships to turn back. And it’s not just Gene that’s scared, though the adults try to hide it from their children, they too are gripped in fear of a seemingly inevitable atomic war – one that would place their town on the Florida coast at ground zero. “Not a safe place to be,” as Woolsey assures his audience, sternly fixing the view with a staring eye and pointing his *cough* trademark cigar in emphasis.
Of course it’s all gravy for Woolsey – fear means bigger audiences. People looking for a good time, people looking to be distracted and pleasantly spooked by something silly. And Woolsey’s got something to amp up the spectacle. Just like William Castle, the man has installed his own – frankly dangerous – devices of spectacle and sensation into the cinema. To say what these are would be telling but if you know of B-movie supremo William Castle, then you get the idea. But this is serious business for Gene, and when he finally gets to meet his hero… well, this is a kid we’re talking about; of course Woolsey the showman is everything he hopes for. In fact, it isn’t long before he’s recruited by Woolsey to install his new bag of tricks into the cinema. Running alongside these twin feelings of fear and fascination are his discovery of girls – in particular one girl, the daughter of liberal beatniks, and the strange stirrings awakened in him.
So that’s the set up. Lots of stuff happens. You get cold war tension. You get puppy love in small town 60’s America. You get violent socially maladjusted greasers who are amateur poets. You also get to see the film ‘MANT!’ itself, which is every bit as awesome as promised.
So MANT is evidently Joe Dante’s childhood, richly evoked. And in an echo of his hero Roger Corman, Dante has his own regulars featuring, such as Dick Miller (Futterman of Gremlins) and Robert Picardo. Also worth a mention is the wonderful Cathy Moriarty, playing the Ruth, the weary, cynical girlfriend of Woolsey. She’s the sarcastic accomplice in his schemes; starring as the big busted heroine in the movie, and as a nurse in the cinema lobby, handing out insurance forms and waivers to those who may experience a heart-attack watching the movie. Yet deep down Ruth loves him for his big-hearted childishness and relentless optimism, knowing Woolsey for what he is, a wonderfully dumb distraction.
It’s the neat thing about this movie (and if any movie can be called gee-whiz neat it’s Matinee) that it effortlessly teaches you quite a bit in 99 minutes. You get a slice of cold war and you learn a lot about William Castle’s modus operandi. At one point in the film you even get a genuine chill during a nightmare sequence. It’s by no means a masterpiece – the film strays into its subplots a little too eagerly, is perhaps a little too in love with minor characters – but for heart and for laughs its streets ahead of Super-8.
And go watch it for ‘MANT!’ It is the best film-within-a-film ever.
Memorable Quote:
Ruth Corday: “He’s not a monster, he’s a shoe salesman!”
General Ankrum: “Would you let *that* fit you in a pump?”
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