Bigfoot Movies Pt 1
Much like the western, the cinema of Bigfoot is a uniquely American genre yet differs in that it has never been embraced by the French. In my opinion, Le Cinema de Bigfoot is waiting for it's very own Anthony Mann to ensure its legacy in the Cahiers du Cinema for it may have found it's Hitchcock already in the guise of Ryan Scifrin. More on him later.
So it took the release of the famous fake film by Roger Patterson to get the ball rolling and make eager film makers say "Hey, I can make a better fur suit than that." It turns out not everybody could. For some reason, I suspect stupidity mixed with wishful thinking, people continue to hallucinate that the Patterson film is real. For the record, back in the mid seventies I paid a buck to see another fake bigfoot, the legendary Minnesota Ice Man, at a mall in New Orleans. It was frozen in a block of ice and with your dollar you got a reprint of an Argosy article about the alleged frozen Sasquatch. I think afterwards I went to the "Flame n' Burger". Of course this has nothing to do with Bigfoot movies.
So first let's take a look at BIGFOOT from 1970 starring John Carradine and a couple of lesser Mitchums. It starts of with Joi Lansing pretending to fly a plane while John Carradine( man, I seem to see a lot of John Carradine movies) and a Mitchum driving a mountain road while they provide alleged comedy relief. The background music in this thing reminds me of the rock n roll of The Mosquitos, that band that landed on Gilligan's Island . This Mitchum looks like a cross between Seth Rogan and Victor Buono, I think it's John Mitchum.
Joi Lansing plays Joi Landis a sexy stacked pilot who bails out her plane and is promptly grabbed by a bigfoot. So some guys and gals on motorbikes head out for some camping or something, fuck I don't think they know. Christopher Mitchum's girl is hot and in a bikini just asking for a bigfoot to grab her, which happens after the BF slaps Mitchum unconscious. A lot of the action centers around a general store run by b-western star Ken Maynard which is filled with your various old timers. Chris Mitchum and his motorcycle buddies (not bikers ala Hell's Angels, more like college hipsters) look for help getting his girl back from the Bigfoots. Carradine and larger Mitchum see it as a money making scheme, an "8th Wonder of the World" as they hope to catch one. Meanwhile back at bigfoot HQ, Joi and the other chick are tied standing up to some conveniently located pole like trees. It's all on a fairly unconvincing wilderness set that resembles something you'd see on a "Lucy Show" episode where Lucy goes camping with Mr. Mooney. Joi gives her the skinny on how she thinks they want chicks for breeding. Frankly, she doesn't seem that concerned. Various female bigfeet and a toddler mill around, grunting and picking nits. After some wackiness, Carradine and Big Mitchum are kidnapped and tied to more poles. Bigfoots have a lot of poles ready for tying folks to. It's hard to get too good a look at the Bigfeets mainly because the dvd print is very dark. There's some gorilla mask type stuff and the toddler seems to be mostly face make up. Eventually Joi is offered up Fay Wray style to the up til now unseen King Bigfoot. She escapes after King Bigfoot gets distracted by a bear fight and eventually the King is shot repeatedly by the rescuers before being blown up in a cave. It's a bit odd for such a cheapjack production but they put squib like explosions on the King so when he is shot you seen it. No blood, just dusty impact. Why they bothered I have no idea. To seal the deal, Carradine delivers the Carl Denham last line from KING KONG. It's a very tame and pretty dull thing, not at all as exciting as the poster makes it out to be, what with it's "breeds with anything" claims. Carradine as usual delivers but he can only do so much. It is the earliest example of post Patterson Bigfoot cinema I've seen.
THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK
Hear the Sulphur River flow
Rising when the storm clouds blow
And this is where the creature goes
Safe within the world he knows
Perhaps he dimly wonders why
There is no other such as I
To touch and love before I die
To listen to my lonely cry
What a beautiful sentiment expressed in this song from Charles B. Pierce's drive-in classic THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK. Great, now I feel bad about wanting to shoot the Fouke Monster. If you were a kid living in the South in the early seventies then you have probably heard of Boggy Creek and it's legend. It's hard to believe how excited I was by this flick when I was eight or so. I think I saw it twice at my beloved Westside Cinema, a fairly low rent independent that showed this kind of thing. Pierce really hit on something big here with his mix of documentary and monster picture which turned an incredible profit. Man o man, as a kid I was convinced this monster was real. I suppose it was the G rated BLAIR WITCH of it's day. I've seen this flick repeatedly pop up on sites such as the excellent kindertrauma.com where movies that scared the crap out of you as a kid are discussed. It also seemed to be the first of its type, a mix of alleged real events with reenactments mixed in.
A narrator starts off telling of a childhood experience of hearing the monster's cry as a boy. It's a set up for a horror movie already as we learn there's no phone, no close neighbors and so on. So the kid runs to the general store and alerts the old timers and then runs back which Pierce decides to show us for no good reason. Right off the bat people are shooting at the poor monster and they even go so far as to call in some "famous dogs from Tennessee". These dogs are smart though and refuse to track the beast. The narrator tells us they were scared but I'm not so sure. They seem to be wagging their tales yet also whimpering. I think they were dubbed.
Eight years go by and no one sees the Creature but that doesn't stop Pierce from introducing us to various swamp folk like some old timer who shot his foot off and another guy named Travis Crabtree. Travis for some reason gets a song about himself which I think is entitled "Nobody Sees the Flowers But Me". He really has absolutely nothing to do with the Creature, mostly he paddles around looking at cooters and thinking deep thoughts.
Eventually somebody finds some three toed footprints which leads to all kind of speculation. A distinction is made between the five- toed sasquatch and the three-toed Fouke monster. To up the scary campfire tale of the whole show, Pierce switches gears and break out the classic spook show set piece-the all girl slumber party. But settle down, this is Fouke, Arkansas not some hot chick Hollywood deal. Here is where ol' Foukie becomes a wannabe slasher-peeper as he creeps about the cabin, making swamp monster noises. The girls are alone and quickly become terrified. So they bust out the gun in a panic and then have the crazed girl trying to load a gun scramble scene. He does some light vandalism and is on his way, eventually killing some dogs. The narrator thinks the creature acts out of lonely frustration. Maybe the dog killing was out of sexual frustration, like some sort of bottom dwelling Richard Ramirez. One thing I do know, "he always travels the creeks", at least according to the narrator.
The last set piece is the one everybody remembers. A pair of families sharing a house are terrorized by the creature. Initially, it's two women alone with their kids as the monster creeps around, twisting doorknobs and such. After their husbands come home is when he pulls his famous reaching in through the window act and later grabbing a guy on the crapper. I remember it being a big moment for the mostly kid audience, a pretty effective "gotcha" scare. So the creature wrestles a guy outside and is shot at a buncha times before ambling off.
I suspect Pierce knew his creature suit would look awful in the open so he never shows us a good look which works for the best. The hairy arm really does the trick by itself and seems to be what people have burned into their memory. It looks like a grainy highway safety movie at times but it does have it's charm. I miss the regional exploitation films and this is one of the most fun. It not something that will be made again. I even like the songs.
On to part two...