Now that Thanksgiving is toast, it’s time to start thinking about Christmas… and if you’ve got stockings to fill, why not fill one with the latest issue of Shock Cinema? It always feels like 8am on December 25th when this mag is in the house, so chock full, so chock-a-block it is with grindhouse goodness, Psychotronic excess, and all around heavy-heavy righteousness. And Issue 45 is no exception! Holy cats, issue 45! Forty-five! I’ve been buying this thing since it was in the single digits! We have grown old together. 
She gets short shrift on the cover but upon cracking this issue I jumped straight to the interview with Jenny Wright that begins on page 31. Wright seemed omnipresent in the 80s, popping up in bits in THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP (1982) and PINK FLOYD THE WALL (1982) before earning well-deserved lead roles in OUT OF BOUNDS (1986), NEAR DARK (1987), and I, MADMAN (1989). The native New Yorker had a will-o-the-wisp quality that made you stare double hard as she glanced across the screen for fear she’d dissolve before your very eyes… and that very nearly came to pass. Troubles with alcohol and drugs — specifically heroin – made her unemployable within a few short years and she was first reduced to bits and then frozen out of the industry entirely. And truth be told, she didn’t care. In Gene Gregorits’ candid conversation with the former actress, Wright takes full responsibility for her career doldrums and doesn’t paint anyone the villain in a life story that had her, up until a few years ago, living in a camper (though former boyfriend Nicholas Cage does not come off at all well in this… oh, not one little bit). It’s great to now that Wright is back in the world and even enjoying, to some degree, the legacy of her all too brief career.
Growing up, Charlie Dierkop was always around, on TV (STAR TREK, LOST IN SPACE, ADAM-12) and in features (THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID, THE STING). but I confess I only sporadically watched him at his regular gig on POLICE WOMAN, where he had Angie Dickinson’s back for numerous seasons. He just had the kind of face a guy remembers, whether he was clean shaven or sporting Manson locks and a Fu Manchu. anthony Petkovich’s chat with the veteran character actor is full of good stories and heart-warming anecdotes about what a sweetheart Robert Shaw was on the set of THE STING and how George C. Scott once floated him a loan for rent money, and how everybody (yeah, even Bob Denver) was high while shooting THE SWEET RIDE (1968), one of my favorite Charlie Dierkop movies. The best tidbit here, entirely new to me, is that Sidney Lumet had been on board originally to direct THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER and had offered a role to Dierkop, only to see financing fall through (apparently tied to Montgomery Clift’s involvement and the difficulty in getting insurance for the troubled actor); when Lumet moved on to THE PAWNBROKER (which had initially been in the hands of Arthur Hiller), he made a place in it for Dierkop. I only wish there interview had carved out some space to talk about Dierkop’s strange cameo in MESSIAH OF EVIL (1972) — a minor credit, sure, but a movie I always think of whenever I pull into a gas station at night.
Stacy Keach’s career has gone in so many different directions but I’m glad I got turned on to his work back during his Serious Actor phase, post-MACBIRD and Shakespeare in the Park, when he was scoring meaty film roles in THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER (1968), John Huston’s FAT CITY (1972), ‘DOC’ (1971), and THE NEW CENTURIONS (1972). I remember watching Keach’s sh0rt-lived cop show CARIBE in 1975 and thought it was pretty tuff when he turned up, without explanation, in the Foreigner’s “Cold As Ice” video when it ran on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, the episode hosted by Christopher Lee. The Savannah, Georgia born actor, namesake son of a veteran actor-director-producer (and head of the Pasadena Playhouse) had his own troubles with substance abuse, culminating in an embarrassing arrest for cocaine possession in London in 1984, which made him the subject of tabloid scrutiny, folding in his Euro-cult work (STREET PEOPLE, MOUNTAIN OF THE CANNIBAL GOD) as evidence of his assumed fall from grace. Luckily, for both Keach and his fans, redemption came via a re-committment to craft on the actor’s part and a re-appreciation of his work, particularly in such cult favorites as THE KILLER INSIDE ME (1976), THE NINTH CONFIGURATION (198o), THE LONG RIDERS (1980), and ROAD GAMES (1981). For the past thirty years, the man has worked… on stage, on TV (as a kinder, gentler Mike Hammer), in film, and even providing voices for an assortment of animated series (from RUGRATS to THE SIMPSONS). And thanks to key performances in such recent films as AMERICAN HISTORY X (1998), W. (2008), THE BOURNE LEGACY (2012), and NEBRASKA (2013), Stacy Keach is cool again. Justin Bozung’s conversation with him is informative and fun, passing along such (to me) new trivia as the fact that Keach was dropped from the cast of CATCH 22 (1970) and did a two week ride-along with LAPD cops for his role in THE NEW CENTURIONS, which involved responding to a report of a dead body discovered in a house in East Los Angeles. I’m glad Justin got Keach to talk about his brief role as the albino gunslinger Bad Bob in THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN, which remains my favorite of the actor’s many colorful performances.
There are interviews in here as well with Robert Loggia (a 20 Questions deal, with Loggia softballing too many of the answers) and Peter Stormare but truth be told I only scanned those on my way to the usual heavy volume of film reviews — and these never disappoint, even when I disagree with the overall assessment. Covered in Issue 42 are the great (to me) Canadian siege drama SELF DEFENSE (1983), the gonzo After School Special ONE TOO MANY (1985) starring a post-TOP SECRET! Val Kilmer and a post-SCARFACE Michelle Pfeiffer (still playing a high school kid at age 25), Mike Hodges’ THE TYRANT KING (1968), the public domain perennial AUTOPSY OF A GHOST (1968) with John Carradine, Gary Cooper’s cinema swan song in THE NAKED EDGE (1961) with Peter Cushing in a small role, THE TRAP (1966) with Oliver Reed, Hammer’s THE SCARLET BLADE (1964), the Marc Lawrence/John Derek joint NIGHTMARE IN THE SUN (1964), and John Hancock’s JAWS 2 (1978) follow-up CALIFORNIA DREAMING (1978) with a nude Glynnis O’Connor. The best review of the bunch, however, is Mike Sullivan’s look back at Chevy Chase’s first post-SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE projects, THE CHEVY CHASE SHOW (1977) and THE CHEVY CHASE NATIONAL HUMOR TEST (1979). Mike’s career assessment/personality profile of Chase is laugh out loud funny (“Chase remains the nation’s most treasured cockbucket…”) and for all I know right on the money. I walked away from reading SHOCK CINEMA #45 feeling more warmth and giddiness than I’ve taken from many a family get-together, so I urge you to fill up your sleigh with copies and parcel them out to your own loved ones this year, naughty or nice.