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January 31, 2002:

COLE SLAW

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I got home yesterday afternoon, I put the key in the lock of my front door, turned said key and said key promptly broke in two, half remaining on my handy-dandy key ring, the other half cleverly lodged in the door lock. I tried dislodging the lodged part, but the lodged part wasn’t having any dislodging and therefore remained lodged. Therefore, I could not get in my very own front door. I stood there like an idiot for a full ten minutes – just stood there looking at the half-of-a-key lodged in the door lock, thinking, “Oh, dear, whatever shall I do,” when it finally occured to me that I always carry a duplicate key with me. So, I went around the back of the house, used my duplicate key to enter the porch door and voila, there I was inside my very own house. I called a handy-dandy locksmith (I tried calling a handy-dandy locksjones but only smiths were available) and they were over in a thrice, they removed the half-key bit from the lock, made me a brand-spanking new key and all was well with the world. I began the habit of carrying a spare key in my pocket at all times because I used to lock my keys in my car all the time. So, I made a spare house key, just in case. Then, quite brilliantly, I made spare car keys too and now I never have key problems. Making those spare keys was the key to the key problem and now I am covered, key problem-wise and I recommend my brilliant solution to everyone.

One of our dear readers came to haineshisway.com this morning and searched “cole slaw”. They got a “0” response, but I do hope they come back, because when I’m through with today’s notes (entitled “Cole Slaw”) they will get at least fifty hits. Anyway, as I looked at “cole slaw” I began to think about “cole slaw”. Now, I like cole slaw as much as the next person (the best is at Farmer’s Market), but just who in hell named it “cole slaw”? I’d understand if it was “cold slaw” – well, I’d understand the “cold” but not the “slaw”. Anyway, I did a bit of research and found out the true story of “cole slaw”. To read about it, merely click on the Unseemly Button below and we will have The Unseemly Tale of Cole Slaw”.

Once upon a time in Days of Yore (Henrik Yore, to be exact), there was an old Swedish King named Olaf Sven Cole. He lived high in a castle, just he and his trusted servants, Ingmar and Per. He was quite aged, old King Cole was, but he ruled with a firm but strong hand and the people loved him from afar. Old King Cole was a strict vegetarian, and so Ingmar and Per always served him cabbage. All manner of cabbage. So much cabbage that King Cole was always yelling at them, “Enough with the cabbage already – sweet and sour, boiled, fried, sauteed – do something new, will you, my trusted servants?”
But Ingmar and Per were at a loss – so King Cole himself went into the kitchen, got some cabbage, but it in a bowl, got a little mayo and mixed it in, and tried his new concoction. Well, it was totally delicious. Even Ingmar and Per had to admit it was delicious. King Cole couldn’t stop eating his new concoction. It seemed he always had a load of it in his mouth, day and night and night and day. Finally, Ingmar and Per told the King that he needed to name his new concoction so that people all over the land could try it. The King said, “I decree that everyone must eat my new concoction. I shall pass a law, Cole’s Law”, but because his mouth was stuffed when he was saying it, Ingmar and Per misunderstood him and thought he said “cole slaw” and the rest is history.

Well, that was a fine tale about cole slaw, wasn’t it? And now, I shall continue the story I began yesterday (if you missed it, merely click on the Unseemly Archive Button and you will be whisked away to YesterdayLand), the story of my second motion picture, The Creature Wasn’t Nice and how it became Spaceship and then Naked Space.

So, we’d scored and dubbed the film and we were ready to take it out and have our “official” previews, one in Marina del Rey and one in New Jersey. I didn’t feel that either of those venues was the right place to preview, but it wasn’t my decision. I alluded yesterday to having made a second error in judgment (the first being talked into the wrong editor). I found out what that error was during our Marina del Rey preview. In any case, the film started, they laughed loudly at the first scene, laughed when the title came on, and laughed at the second scene. And then, there were virtually almost no laughs until I Want to Eat Your Face. I couldn’t really understand it at all. The preview cards were, for the most part, awful. Some of this had to do with the “above it all” rich-kid crowd from Marina del Rey, some of it had to do with the fact that Airplane had come out the year before and I think they maybe expected that kind of off-the-wall gag-a-minute craziness (which The Creature Wasn’t Nice was never designed to be – it was designed to be funny certainly, but in a more classic and linear way). But, as I sat and tried to dissect the difference between our last preview at MGM, where the laughs were loud and consistent I realized where I’d made a second crucial mistake, and that was in my choice of composer. Now, I’d met several composers I really liked, but we went with David Spear because he’d done musicals and he could orchestrate my songs, and because he’d been orchestrating and ghost-writing for Elmer Bernstein and that seemed like a good thing. I will say, before I get into specifics, that David is extremely talented and a truly nice guy and he did a great job orchestrating my three songs.

When we’d done those previews at MGM, I’d done what they call a “temp track”, that is, I’d put in “temporary” music, just to help the audience understand the tone of the film and because it’s very hard to watch a movie without some kind of music in. And it was a really good temp-track, too. It had Close Encounters for the first gag, it had the crazy theremin music from The Thing for the Main Title, it had suspense music from Psycho, all that kind of stuff. And it all really helped – the pace, the comedy, everything. David didn’t want to hear the temp track – a lot of film composers don’t, because they feel it inhibits them. So, rather than insisting, I said fine. I should have insisted, because it would have given him direction and showed him why certain things worked. I did sit with him and “spot” the film, in other words, decide where the music would be. And I told him I wanted a crazy loony theremin-based main theme. Well, to cut to the chase, I didn’t get what I wanted, but by the time I knew that it was really too late to do anything about it. The budget, while not as low as Nudie Musical, was still pretty low, 1.2 million, if I recall correctly. Had there been money, I would have tossed the score and had it redone. But, there wasn’t. His opening “Close Encounters” type thing worked fine, but his Main Title was very The Planets-like, slow and ponderous. It was nice music, but wasn’t weird and crazy like I wanted. Some of his suspense cues were okay, but basically his music didn’t help the picture at all and, in certain cases, really hurt it. One particular scene comes to mind – the Creature is loose on the ship. Cindy, needing a moment of relaxation, goes in the solar sun room and lies down on a long chair to calm herself. She suddenly hears a door slide open. The camera stars a long 180 degree dolly shot around her – as it gets in back of her we see a shadow on the curtain (the curtain that keeps the room private), the shadow comes closer and closer, as Cindy gets more scared and more scared. Finally, the curtains part, but it isn’t the Creature, it’s fellow crew member, the obnoxious Rodzinski (Gerritt Graham) trying to see if she’s nude or if he can get any action. She gets rid of him, goes back, lies down again, and the camera does the exact same 180 around her, as we see the shadow again coming closer and closer – this time she’s ready, she walks up the curtain, says, “Rodzinski, I warned you” and she punches the shadow right in the stomach as hard as she can. Suddenly we hear an unearthly scream, the curtains part, it’s the Creature (barely glimpsed) and Cindy escapes by the skin of her teeth.

Okay, so, in the temp track, the minute the camera starts its first 180 around her, I used suspense music by Bernard Herrmann, from Psycho. It worked beautifully – created real tension (at that point the audience had no idea what the creature looked like or what direction we might go in in terms of scares or even violence). It also made Gerritt’s appearance funnier. Okay, the camera starts its second 180, and I use the exact same music cue. Worked perfectly, because the audience knows that this time it will be the Creature.

In any case, one day David Spear called me and told me to come over because he had the music for that scene and he totally was thrilled with it. I went to his house, he put up the video of the scene and played the piano along with it. And what he played was a beautiful haunting theme. I looked at him and asked, “Why” as any sane person would do. And he had a whole reasoning, which was she’s gone in the solar relaxation room, and this is the music she’s chosen. I said, “That’s fine for the beginning of the scene, but once the camera starts dollying, we need suspense music,” but he disagreed, and I allowed myself to be talked out of what I knew was needed. Lesson learned: Never be talked out of anything when you are certain you are right. It was my film, and I should have held firm. Bad mistake.

So, the preview in New Jersey went the same as the preview in Marina del Rey – big laughs at the opening scenes, then nothing until the I Want to Eat Your Face number. Again, those Airplane expectations and an older crowd didn’t help things. At that point, I’d had my Director’s Guild guaranteed previews, and the film was out of my hands. The producers decided to hire a man named Harry Hurwitz, who’d made several unreleasable films, along with a few less-than-brilliant comedies. I kept hearing through the grapevine that his intention was to reedit (something I wish I’d been allowed to do myself – I would have loved one more pass at the film to do some minor fixes, and to rescore it with better music) the film, but I also heard the rather horrifying news that he was shooting additional material with this person named Brother Theodore, a weird Nazi-like “comic” – these additional scenes had Brother Theodore in some boiler room on the spaceship, ranting and raving.

Many months later, I got a call saying that Hurwitz had finished his work – mercifully, they hadn’t used any of the Brother Theodore material. I was told that Hurwitz had added stuff that I hadn’t included in the film (more of the improvised bits, some of the Dirty Harry coming attraction, etc.) but they were all very pleased with what he’d done. A print was sent out to LA so I could see it. The line producer, the associate producers and I all went. I, in particular, went with an open mind, because I thought that anything that would save or help the film would be a good thing. The film began – the titles came on. The pre-title gag, which got a huge laugh at every screening including the bad previews, wasn’t there anymore – maybe they were saving it? The title was now Spaceship, which, I suppose, was their feeble attempt to cash in on Airplane. So, the titles ended, and suddenly we were in the cockpit with Leslie Nielsen and Gerritt Graham. The first scene of the film, which got a huge laugh at every screening including the bad previews, was gone – maybe they were saving it, but why? The Leslie/Garrett scene was cut in half, all of its funny jokes gone. It was faster, though. And there was rock music playing behind the entire scene. And, my wonderful Broderick Crawford as Max, the computer voice, was replaced by some awful hip-talking deejay type voice, but with totally horrendously unfunny dialogue. Of course, everyone’s distasteful reaction to the original Max dialogue, now made no sense. In the original version, you meet all the characters, get to know the dynamic between them, see what life is like on the ship, and then, Patrick Macnee’s Dr. Stark discovers the Unknown Planet and off they go. Well, in the new version they are on the planet in ten minutes. You don’t really know anything about the characters or their dynamic. But, it was faster. Then, we get back to the ship, the creature grows and gets loose – but you’ve suddenly got all these other scenes which used to be in the first part of the film – including the original post-titles scene, which is not funny anymore because it’s entire purpose was to be a non-sequiter. The pre-title scene was gone entirely, and all the little added bits merely continued to rob the film of momentum and tension. The I Want to Eat Your Face number was still funny, and the last fifteen minutes of the film were just about identical. Mr. Hurwitz had also inserted several bits of stock footage from other monster movies, to no real effect. And that obnoxious computer voice was awful – not the idea of it, just the terrible writing. Of course, the film said Written and Directed by Bruce Kimmel, not Harry Hurwitz. Also, he’d printed all the corridor scenes about five stops too bright, so that all shadows and detail were gone, causing all the corridors to look exactly the same, and again, robbing the film of any suspense whatsoever (I mean, when they’re searching for the Creature in my version, you can barely see anything and it’s quite scary).

So, did anything in this new version work? Well, I liked the idea of having some kind of source music behind certain scenes, just not the awful source music they used. I liked the idea of Max being more of a presence, but not the voice or the dialogue they used. I did like having a bit of Dirty Harry back, but didn’t like most of the improvised bits they’d stuck back in (even though I was in quite a few of them). They did put back in something I really liked, my 2001 walk up the wall spoof – but they printed it wrong, so that I walk up the wall fast and once I reach the top and am upside down I fall straight down and out of the shot slow – should be the other way around, slow walk up fast fall. Idiotic.

They released Spaceship in one city where it died a quick and merciful death. It then promptly came out on video. Clearly the took this very specific type of film and tried to turn it into something it wasn’t, Airplane. They did this by throwing all the scenes in the air and rearranging the entire structure of the film – but since the gags were never Airplane-like, it simply doesn’t work. When it’s funny, it’s funny, and when it’s not, it’s nothing. In the original version, when it’s funny it’s funny and when it’s not, it’s suspenseful or at least interesting. Somehow, over the years, a core group of people have come to really like Spaceship – they know it’s scattershot, but they do like the funny bits. It’s out on DVD, as I said, but it’s too damn bright and full frame and is rather grotesque. But there is a reason, don’t you know, for this long diatribe and tale. First of all, I have never, in print, told this particular tale before, so those here at haineshisway.com are the first to know all the details of this. At the time, I’d merely kept a happy face on and moved along with my life. I was mortified, of course, to think people thought I was responsible for the stock footage or the dialogue of the computer, but what could I do about it?

Anyway, the point is, I was having all this stuff transfered to DVD, and one of the things I had transfered was my three quarter inch tape of my cut of the film. I watched it the other night for the first time in fifteen years. All I’ve seen is that “thing” that calls itself Spaceship and/or Naked Space. And you know what? The years have been kind to my baby. No, not all of it works, yes, there are things I would love to revisit and change (the score being first and foremost), but overall it just works pretty well. It’s eighty-eight minutes, is paced very well indeed. We’ve had a lot of Airplane ripoffs in the last twenty years, each one to lesser effect in my opinion. The plot comedy has come back and therefore The Creature Wasn’t Nice feels more like Nudie now, just a straightforward spoof, but a linear comedy. I think if it were shown to an audience today (with a different score and a few cosmetic nips and tucks) it would get a pretty decent reaction. Watching it, I realized it wasn’t such a bastard child after all. And it certainly is light years ahead of Spaceship/Naked Space.

Well, that was a long tale, wasn’t it? I’d love you to be able to compare the two versions, but you’d have to come to my house. Of course, if you do, we can all watch it together whilst eating cole slaw, along with our customary cheese slices and ham chunks.

Before I close, let me just say that after I type these here notes, I get them up immediately – I don’t proof them. So, please forgive typos – I do go back later, and if I find them I fix them then. Typos and bad grammar are unseemly and we will not have them here at haineshisway.com. Perhaps I should throw all the paragraphs of today’s notes into the air and rearrange them so they make no sense. Then we could call them Spaceship/Naked Space.

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