Forward to Glory

by Brian Paul Bach

  ‘Pepperflabb’ (Svensk Filmindustri): Bergman in the skerries.

  ‘Marshall Applewhite and the Comet’ (Carson Karker Arts). Comets, castration, and tennies. (An altogether different film from his later ‘The Extravaganza of Marshall Applewhite’ (Oddball).)

  ‘Always on the Fringe’ (Goldwyn). Now, what was this thing about making a political statement? The actor’s good buddy Howard Hawks always condemned cinema as a private podium from which to preach one’s point of view.

  ‘We’re here to entertain, not enchain.’

  Thus, Butterbugs’ basic politics: from rural reactionary conservatism to enlightened liberalism… This particular picture, though, concerned itself with aggressively bohemian types in Manaus, Amazonas, Brasil.

  The Gogg/Gobb Series: ‘The Blugg Gogg’ and ‘The Blud Gobb’ (both American-International), cheap monster pix, and a heck of a lot of fun to do and view.

  ‘Undimmed by Human Tears’ (Seven Arts), a weepie about river folk of Cairo, Ill., c. 1850s. Merv LeRoy directed, stunningly.

  ‘Sounds Like a Winner!’ (Paramount), the kooky adventures of a dimbulb – in charge of a young people’s night club! Douglas J. Cuomo did the score.

  ‘The Meatrix’ (Your Basic). Butterbugs did voices in the feature-length version of the remarkable Internet anti-meat cartoon.

  ‘We Don’t Cotton To That Sort of Thing’ (Buena Vista), a greasy, sweaty, sleazy time down South, with fussbudgets who specialize in disapproval.

  ‘Nah-Tay’ (20th-Fox), a big Seminole picture. The first time that particular culture was portrayed authentically onscreen. No white people in the story.

  ‘Return to the Square’ (Pathé), pic chronicled a whole ethnic group in the former USSR who travel back to their homeland. Massive movement. Contrasted with a companion picture:

  ‘Return to Where It Matters’ (MGM), about the Seminoles in Oklahoma, who successfully return to Florida and reclaim things as they want them. Award-winner.

  ‘The Story of Don Sullivan’ (McLendon Radio Pictures), one of Butterbugs’ few showbiz pix, concerning the kid actor Scotty Beckett.

  ‘Enoch Arden’ (Metropolitan), with the Richard Strauss score, expanded by André Previn.

  Butterbugs seized the day, and the OscarsTM surrounded him in two large Modern Morality MelodramasTM ‘The Curiosities of the Clinton Administration’, and ‘The Rise and Fall of the George W. Bush Administration’ (both Hazel Snyder Presents). With Burt Mustin.

  And, continuing Butterbugs’ rarefied taste for restrained drama on gothic subjects, he shot ‘The Verger’ (Tart Whistle) on location in some of England’s most sepulchral ecclesiastical locations, in the dimmest, dreariest winter on record, with results that were nothing less than sensational. The picture let loose a whole pop subculture concerned with c.1820s clerical life. It was favorably compared to the already classic ‘Melmoth the Wanderer’ (20th-Fox).

  Not surprisingly, this outstanding success was soon followed by ‘The Usher’ (Tart Whistle), which was even more schauerromantik in its implications and blandishments.

  (Butterbugs playfully insisted that whenever the titles of these three gothic pictures appeared in print, it had to be in their ‘really neat-looking’ poster fonts.)

  ‘The Rack’ (WB), an Iraq War picture; Iraquagmire.

  ‘In A Winter Byway’ (Selznick): Bob Frost poeticism.

  ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy’ (British Lion). Omdurman, 1898. Butterbugs played a warrior chief. During filming, the fuzzy wuzzies got out of hand. A huge imbroglio, but Butterbugs’ character (the half-Nubian, half-Galician Lord Mellbelli Norfert-Rorqueraque) brokers a total and lasting peace.

  ‘Aisle and Alcove’ (Metropolitan), an existential romance in a big downtown theatre in an anonymous city. 1950s. All films showing in the context of the story were filmed especially for this picture. Matinees & loser-types, but a bohemian nobility prevails.

  ‘Rocket Sam’ (Oddball), David Lynch’s amazing treatment of the Chris Ware strip.

  ‘A Dog Named Trale’ (RKO), a touching country-dog tale.

  ‘The Cardboard Baby’ (Biograph), a remake of the 1909 Kalem classic.

  ‘Princess Nicotine and the Smoke Fairy’ (First National), a remake of the 1909 Kalem classic.

  ‘An Empty Bubble’ (Seven Arts), pic about the Taj Mahal and the building of its black mate across the Yamuna River, as seen by a bored Indian æsthete, who is transformed in the process.

  ‘Holy Water Sprinkler War On The Volga Plains’ (Bronston), the most profound of the actor’s war pictures to date. The reality of the amazing battle sequences turned the tide in the public’s regard and tolerance for warfare. Butterbugs was doing it for them.

  ‘After this picture, war officially becomes irrelevant.’

  So said the critics, but the real consensus was based on the overwhelming wave of transfixed and transformed audiences, which were mammoth. Arms dealers became dismayed! But – the people spake! Analysts found that Butterbugs was really ‘onto something’ by being instrumental in what was obviously an evolutionary step in the human experience.

  After wrapping post-production dubbing at Bronston Studios near Madrid, Butterbugs toddled up to Pamplona just as the bulls were let loose.

  ‘Here they come!’ the actor smartypantsfoned Sonny excitedly.

  ‘What the hell do you wanna do that for, soon-to-be-gored star of mine?’

  ‘For Ernie! For Ty! For Errol! And Ava!’

  ‘Yeah, right. I call it ‘the running of the bullshits!’ So help me, if you dare to –’

  Suddenly a horrendous AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!! came shrieking over the phone.

  ‘Butterbugs???? Hey!! Butterbugs, are you – could you – be on the horns of a…’

  ‘Pretty hilarious, Sonny. Some stupid kid just stepped in some real, actual bullshit. As you so accurately referred to…’

  With ‘Howrah Bridge’ (Selznick), Butterbugs’ grand relationship with Calcutta was solidified. He regularly continued his visits to Howrah, and recharged there. ‘HB’ covered the actual building of the bridge. For the picture, coinciding with scheduled maintenance, the bridge was actually disassembled, then reassembled with massive improvements. Butterbugs played Sir Hubert Shirley Smith, the designer of the mega-structure.

  ‘Felsövárosvize!’ (Peppercorn/Wormser), a tale of the erstwhile and eponymous King of Hungary.

  ‘Durrazzo’ (Columbia), an obscure and dreary period war epic, c. 1908, but it ends up being remarkable and brilliant. Bernard Herrmann scored.

  ‘Bad Show Biz’ (Universal-International), a project particularly close to Butterbugs’ heart – how bad-quality showbiz is in too many walks of human life, whether in Distance Education or Kraybo Restaurants, or even in amateur PointPlug and slide presentations.

  In ‘The Bunker Boys’ (Severe Jurist Pictures), Butterbugs played both Chang and Eng, the famed Siamese Twins. Chang becomes ‘a loud-mouthed drunkard’. Twenty-one kids and a communal household spread between two houses. All-night poker parties. An incredible picture.

  ‘Penthesilea’ (Realart), the enchanting Immanâla Nōōmanossi played the title character. Hugo Wolf score. Very ‘von Stück’ and glorious in its style. Werner Herzog directed, magnificently. The Departure of the Amazons for Troy sequence was one of the most powerful depictions of portending ever to appear on the screen. The Dream of the Feast of Roses was equally lush and heady. A remake of the earlier Butterbugs 20th-Fox production (with its equally compelling Richard Strauss score), but an entirely different film. The actor always seized opportunities for remakes. ‘It’s as if they are different stage productions – why shouldn’t new ideas be tried?’

  ‘Dinny’s Tavern’ (Paramount), small, small, small town’s watering hole.

  ‘The Great Growl Of A Great Growling Dog’ (Disney), a part animated picture for the kids. Butterbugs was not at all adverse to these ‘partials’.

  ‘He Went To The Pope And He Said, “Pope?”’ (Allied Artists). Butterbugs as the first pope allowed to
marry, and problems with the Vatican Railway pop up. As exec producer, Pope Frauncis totally approved.

  In ‘Hot Block’ (Lemon International), doofusses goof around innocently with large 1950s cars no one else wants. Butterbugs played Chumpy. Huge response from many, many viewers who said:

  ‘We did the same thing! And we thought no one else knew or cared!’

  After this one, a sequel: ‘Zil Heated’ (Lenfilm), but a virtual remake of ‘Hot Block’, though set in the Soviet Union of the 1970s, with Volgas and Zils featured.

  ‘Ruta Nacional 81’ (Continental), a road trip on the 400 km straightaway through Formosa province, in the Argentine.

  ‘The Song of the Nightjar’ (20th-Fox), long sequences in Mediterranean lazarettos, c. 1840s.

  ‘Gimmons & Grut’, a taut law firm drama, viewed from high-level judicial positions. Entirely set on the Oscar Niemeyer (who designed & co-produced) planet of Ruazerra.

  ‘Western Tanager and Chimney Swallow’ (Tinker), a birding picture.

  ‘In the Year 1311’ (WB). The premise: Urgan XXI reigned in Courland. Who was that…? The king, a savage oaf, encounters plague in a peasant hut. Late, wet afternoon in November: crisis between the king and Yubbox and Iggön, rival princes. Butterbugs took it from there, with only one year to tell the tale.

  ‘Do Goblins Turn Into Goblings?’ (Buena Vista), a cozy supernatural omnibus of yarns.

  ‘The Sharnamanapupulam’ (BKV-Sippypix), an Indic tetrology, on the lines of Wagner’s ‘Ring’. Sacred fire music provided by an Indian composer in Gulbarga, in collaboration with Miklós Rózsa. Astounding.

  ‘Toilers of the Air’ (Ziggurat): similar to Hugo’s masterpiece, with a different setting. Pilot aims plane upwards, unto the sun, and a man, through odds, salvages it on a mountain peak.

  ‘The Ramatapaniyopanishad’ (Munjun International). When director Pappy Ford took sick (!) for a few days during the shooting of this huge Hindoo mythological (Rama is worshiped as super-supreme being), Butterbugs got his first taste of direction. Pappy himself handed over the reins. The actor elected to retreat from overt directorial action, but in so doing, took on the shape of say, a 19th-century painter of mega-realist mythological orientation (consistent with Ford). A dance sequence on a terrace. Very ornate, almost Art Nouveau, but with a nod to Hawks-like progressions, Butterbugs just let the camera roll, and the action played itself. Pappy liked it (the sequence remained in the final print), but solidly reclaimed the director’s chair. For Butterbugs, it was a sobering but strangely calming experience.

  Ever protective of Pappy, ‘I like to act…,’ he told the press.

  ‘Oukumbo!’ (Goldwyn), an epic of Ovampoland.

  ‘Which One Of You Guys Made Off With My Bike?’ (Republic). Butterbugs plays a sadistic third grade teacher, Paulus Drotznen. When he questions one of his problem students, lying in the hall, he gets the reply: ‘I’m pickin’ my butt…’

  ‘Out On Badger Mountain Road’ (Tuckerbib): pic of drifter who shows up in a small plateau town. He falls for a pony-girl at the county fair. He becomes a pillar in the community. The fair girl’s b.f. goes off to Iraq and is killed.

  ‘Is Limbo Out of Business?’ (Oddball). Butterbugs to Vatican:

  ‘I thought that the concept of limbo was a big moneymaker for the Church. Do the citizens of Limbo now get outa jail free? Where will all those displaced souls go? Do they have more rights than Katrina victims? Do they go upstairs or downstairs? Or do they get a second chance to be baptized, by being turned loose on Earth? I expect answers!’

  The Vatican would get back to him on that one.

  And this was just one (nearly) consecutive sequence of Butterbugs’ pictures. There were others. Many others

  71.

  Flesh Impact

  In Hollywood, there was always going to be Flesh Impact.

  How many times (per day) did Butterbugs encounter it? To Harry Cohn, no flesh had more impact than Rita Hayworth’s, but no doubt da brains behind Columbia Pictures also took into account half the broads before the cameras in this town, and that’s what the following situation was about, too.

  [Harry being the sexist SOB that he was, he didn’t leave the gents out of this equation, but unsexed them: Force Impact was the custom-made epithet he applied. It didn’t go over as well as the fleshy kind…]

  Her bubs were legendary.

  Director Jürgen Cham had done that incredible dolly backward, which seemed to go on forever, from collarbone to denuded aureolæ, showcasing their owner’s role as Juno in the Roman picture, ‘Hic Liber Capite Nostro Factus Manique’ (Lemon International). Those lovelies were neither the biggest nor the smallest, but the best. In all-female polls on the subject, conducted by Naomi Wolf and Praceba Mankannannavap, she won every time.

  ‘I just don’t know what the big deal is,’ she opined, she being Vizbulite Lacplesis, the Marilyn Monroe of our times.

  But it was a big deal. Or rather, they were.

  Flesh impact always meant big box office of course, and now that Butterbugs was mixed into the same keg of H’wood action, with ‘force impact’, the time was nigh that some sort of onscreen coupling would be attempted by press agents. That is, Butterbugs and Vizbulite, together.

  ‘They were in the same picture, Hory. What was ‘Hic Liber Capite Nostro Factus Manique’, then? An Easter pageant?’ complained Lem Silver, press agent.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, well, the same scenes, then,’ Horace Gold, press agent, corrected himself.

  ‘Awright, awright. I hear ya,’ replied Lem. ‘Thing is, we gadda geddum both in the same property. All the way. The same scenes.’

  ‘Now listen, Sonny called t’is morning and laid the following on me. Butterbugs’ next vehicle is another costumer, set in an ancient empire –’

  ‘Uh – gain?’

  ‘Yeah, again. What’s the beef? Did you see the jingle that ‘Hic’s been hauling in, first weekend?’

  ‘Yeah, Hory, I’m not naggin’. Just jealous, that’s all.’

  ‘So this is a chance for Gold & Silver to eat-a-piece-a-pie. So listen, we go to Sonny, with the hook being, although B-bugs is already in, he won’t do the picture without Miz Viz as his, uh, beautiful co-star. That’ll be the deal.’

  ‘Whaddif they can’t sign Viz-beautiful-lite?’ asked Lem, a near quaver in his voice.

  ‘They will. They can yank her out of her Universal contract at any time. It’s called the Butterbugs Clause. In other words, if Butterbugs requests it, any studio will loan the requested actor out, if – and only if – it’s Butterbugs that instigates it. Didn’t you know that, Lemmie-kins?’

  ‘So what we gadda do, see, is get the man himself to invite – yeah, I like that, invite our gal into his picture.’

  ‘Yeah, awright, invite. That’s an OK thing to use.’

  ‘But wait a minute,’ Lem cautioned, ‘whaddif the role’s awready filled?’

  ‘It is. ProwlerCat’s skedded.’

  ‘I guess we’re cooked, then.’

  ‘You aren’t listening, Lemmie, baby.’

  ‘What the hell?! My ears still work!’

  Horace slowed his speech down, way down.

  ‘A little thing called the Butterbugs Clause. That means he can dictate in all directions, Lemmie. We follow. Got it? Not only can he invite talent in, he can rearrange the musical chairs if he wants to. Once the ink is dry, even.’

  ‘The hell you say. Not even Merv LeRoy, Eva Mendes or Vince Price can do that!’

  ‘Whadayou think being tight with Sonny means? It’s all about knowing shit like that. One hand washes the other.’

  Lem relaxed, put out his cigar in his peppered ice water and poured himself another Old Fashioned.

  ‘You know, Hory, they’re gonna erect a statue of you in this town some day, and it ain’t gonna be in Babyland at Forest Lawn, neither!’

  Joyfully, Horace feigned rage.

  ‘Why you…!’

  ProwlerCat was a hot star. But she was not a superstar. Vizbuli
te Lacplesis was a hot star. But she was a superstar. The chemical formulæ were obvious, especially to Mega|Goth Studios, whose mogul, Hyman Goth, was so keen on maximizing profits, as a result of the very, very expensive merger that he had orchestrated not long before.

  In mixing chemicals, especially the high-end tinctures and essences that comprise the most rarefied of star-power compounds, the presentational chemist must take into consideration the most attractive combines of acid, base, and color, so that the out-coming amalgam is characterized by the most lustrous, substantial and durable package of giant molecules ever. For what are motion pictures but an art which seeks to top itself with every release? Such a goal could be achieved, primarily through the miracle of constant experimentation, daring innovation, and the most aggressive marketing of the given, proven, artifact, to achieve the desired positive effect.

  As time went on, reel after reel of Butterbugsian product had woven its way into the warp and woof of the protean Hollywoodian fabric. With the attention that Sonny Projector lavished upon his client, which formed the main stream within Butterbugs’ torrent of cinematic activity, the pressure of designing a precise mechanism of management had increased multifold. Thus, the very best engineers, scientists and artistes who professed talent and capability in creation, guidance and mastering of Butterbugsian film production/promotion/exhibition, came together under one overarching tent. A place where everyone knew who everyone was, and what everyone was capable of.

  And Sonny’s was a very big tent indeed.

  Never had professionalism in the Industry reached such a height! Not even in 1939! The stakes of making the whole apparatus steam onward, without the least bit of interruption, were high/higher/highest. The expert maintenance of this game became the mission of the many. Opportunities were never so plentiful for the imaginative and the talented to seize the day and contribute to the reborn art-and-Industry of picture shows and their associated photoplays!