Keeping Track of Soundtracks Part Three

As Hollywood crumbled, the independents showed how to make a youth movie. A few got it right, such as 'Psych-Out', 'Captain Milkshake' and 'Wild in the Streets'. 'Psych-Out', produced by Dick Clark, was unusually hip, shot in San Francisco, using the best actors working in exploitation then, such as Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Susan Strasberg, and Dean Stockwell. Full of acid rock and drugs, it still treats hippies as real people, capable of being the heroes as well as the villains.

It even included a re-enactment of the 'Death of a Hippie' event in Golden Gate Park. The soundtrack used existing groups, including the infamous Seeds, whose lead singer Sky Saxon would become one of the more known acid casualties of the era. Interestingly, around this time Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make 'Frenzy', but among hippies in the New York City era. Unable to get the studio to back him, it could have looked like this picture, well directed by Richard Rush.

'Wild in the Streets' is even better; a bolder, crazy mixture of bad taste and interesting ideas, a film that had to be made in the tumultuous year of 1968. Christopher Jones plays a charismatic leader of a rock back, obviously based on Jim Morrison. Becoming involved in politics to lower the voting age to eighteen (a big issue at the time), he enters the race for president and wins. Watching Shelley Winters being forced into a concentration camp for anyone over 30, being force fed acid, is worth the price of admission alone.

The producers even hired Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, who had a long string of hits under their belt, to write most of the soundtrack. While the movie is basically a right wing political nightmare, it is fun to see Richard Pryor in his first movie role. The song 'Shape of Things to Come' was convincingly enough psychedelic to be included on the first 'Nuggets' box set, the only soundtrack piece ever included. Both these movies capture the youth movement in spirit and style.

Not every independent could do it; Roger Corman, so ahead of his time with 'The Trip', even getting the first rock soundtrack by the Electric Flag, fell horribly flat with 'Gas! - Or - It Became Necessary To Destroy The World In Order To Save It'. This is a horrible movie despite Country Joe & the Fish making an appearance. They look as if they are waiting for their paycheck, miles away from the radical band that started in Berkeley five years earlier. Despite having Cindy Williams, Ben Vereen and Talia Shire in the cast, the movie lays there, inert.

The soundtrack is odd as well, seemingly written by various members of the Fish, but performed separately or by outsiders. It is usually Bob Corff singing, a young actor who later became a voice coach. Country Joe & the Fish were still a hot property, having performed the famous 'Fish Cheer' at Woodstock the year before. Using an unknown, not listing the Fish at all on the soundtrack album, doomed it to obscurity. Ultimately, it wouldn't have mattered; the movie is that terrible.

Hollywood was desperate for some of this youth market goldmine; they simply had no idea how to get it. Young executives were hired, or independent producers and directors brought in, not always with good results. The most improbable attempt was the brilliant idea of getting Russ Meyers to do a rock musical, 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls'. Russ was as square as they came, but he had been the first guy to get one of his tits & ass movies into nationwide distribution, 1959's 'The Immoral Mr. Teas.' Since then, his low budget schlock had racked up millions. MGM gave him the keys to the kingdom for one year.

MGM wanted a follow up to 'Valley of the Dolls', an over-wrought pot boiler from a few years earlier. Working with Roger Ebert, who must have liked overstuff mammary as much as Russ, they came up with a decent idea; move the action from young actresses to a young female rock group. Unfortunately, Roger was no hipper than Russ. Together, they produced a movie so wrong that it has since become a cult classic - for all the wrong reasons.

Russ certainly adds enough T & A to maintain his reputation, even if all the male leads look suspiciously light in the loafers. The plot works well enough until the final reel, when evil lesbians, comic Nazis, hermaphrodites, and savage murders turns the entire thing upside down. Musically, it is horrid, sounding out of date even at the time. It made money, but Russ and MGM were to part ways soon after.

For absolute weirdness, nothing tops 'Zachariah', billed as 'The First Electric Western'. Conceived by the Firesign Theater, a hip comedy group from Los Angeles, as a re-telling of the story of Siddhartha, it's hard to tell if they were straight faced or the whole thing is a joke. Either way, the movie is a mess, the acting terrible. It tries to be a cool Western, yet also tries to be an anti-violent Western at the same time.

While it was a huge flop, at least it got the music down better. Country Joe & the Fish, soon to break up, at least look happy here, contributing a few songs. Doug Kershaw, a Louisiana fiddler, gets a few licks in, appropriate enough for a Western. The James Gang show up to provide some actual rock power, and Elvin Jones, John Coltrane's favorite drummer, gets an acting part as well as a drum solo. Confusing and messy, this constantly played at midnight showings, always disappointing audiences.

While there were a ton of documentary ideas at the time that flopped, everything from films of the Miami Pop Festival, Randall's Island Music Festival, Atlanta Pop Festival, and Festival Express (a train across Canada with the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and the Band), one idea panned out; 'Mad Dogs & Englishmen'. Joe Cocker and his very talented band, including Leon Russell and Rita Coolidge, were filmed on tour across America, both on stage and off. The band was great, the music was great, the presentation was effective. Better yet, there was a double album to record the event that was also great.

This documentary, perhaps better than any other, shows the communal good vibes that groups of travelling musicians could generate while on the road during this period. It was a big band, with many backing singers. Groupies and roadies come and go, audiences are ecstatic, all the while Joe Cocker looking like he's never slept a wink. Too bad the group broke up, Joe too exhausted to keep it together; this is some truly great material.

Mention needs to be made of Bob Dylan, the single biggest artist in American pop during this time period. Bob had ambitions to be a actor, appearing on the BBC as early as 1963 in a dramatic role. "Don't Look Back', the fabulous documentary about his 1965 tour directed by D.A. Pennabaker, was about Dylan as a folk singer, with only the film of 'Subterranean Blues' qualifying as rock. Next year, with an electric band backing him up for half the live show, he set out again in England, Pennabaker once again in tow. This time, Bob was in charge, wanting to edit it together.

Dylan had looked rough in 1965, getting drunk, trying to pick fights. The next year, he was a walking zombie. The infamous motorcycle accident cleared his calendar, Bob getting to work in an editing bay, spending months creating an unwatchable, unsellable mess. He wouldn't admit it, but Dylan was deeply influenced by his visits and screen tests at Andy Warhol's Factory. His movies show all the hallmarks of the loose improvisational - and completely uncommercial -Warhol style.

This turkey, with absolutely groundbreaking footage of Dylan and the Band at the heights of their combined power, could not be sold. It only received a very limited theatrical release in 1973, more for copyright purposes. Fortunately, the raw footage was later used by Martin Scorsese decades later in the magnificent 'No Direction Home', so all was not lost. It was worth the wait.

Dylan showed up in a number of documentaries on Johnny Cash and Earl Scruggs, both worth checking out, as well as 'The Concert For Bangladesh'. The biggest surprise was his return to acting in 1973, in Sam Peckinpah's 'Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.' Not only did he not embarrass himself, he also managed a soundtrack full of period appropriate music. It even included one of his classic songs, 'Knocking on Heaven's Door'.

Bob should have quit while he was ahead. Instead, during his mid 1970s comeback, he assembled a nearly five hour epic (or turkey, according to your perspective) called 'Renaldo & Clara'. It was another unwatchable mess that had to be cut down to 122 minutes to get a VERY limited release years after it had been filmed. Neither version had every been available to the general public.

Bob continued his acting career, showing up in odd places over the years, such as 'Hearts on Fire' or 'Paradise Cove'. He even returned behind the camera one last time in 2003 for 'Masked & Anonymous', another disaster with an all-star cast. Dylan has struck out three times as a director; he should take the hint. This just proves that greatest in one field does not necessarily translate to another.

One last note in this installment; while Dylan was editing 'Eat This Document', recovering from his accident, his manager kept the Band on a retainer in the New York City area, in case Bob suddenly was inspired to go into the studio. The guys needed money, winding up doing some soundtrack work to a very strange movie called 'You Are What You Eat', a documentary about the freak capitols of America at the time, the East Village, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Among other things, they laid down the backing tracks for vocalist Tiny Tim. Picture that!