| Our
feature film is EEGAH! opened in 1962 in
a drive-in theater in Omaha, Nebraska.
Eegah
is one of those rare existential movies that comes
but once in a lifetime. Long criticized for its
inept amateurishness, Eegah, when viewed in the
new millennium with an open mind, is really an avant-garde
classic - a film that defies all convention. The
minute the hand-drawn credits hit the screen, you
know you're in for a unique experience. Filmed in
Bronson Canyon, the same desert where "Robot
Monster" was filmed. Eegah's cavern is Ro-Man's
headquarters seen from a different angle!
Produced
and directed by Arch Hall, Sr. under the pseudonym
Nicholas Merriwether and starring his son, the one
and only Arch Hall, Jr., who (despite taking shots
on the chin from critics for his acting abilities)
creates the ultimate smarmy, baby-faced rock &
roll hero. He keeps singing to a girl named Valerie,
even though there's no Valerie in the movie. Very
irritating.
Giant
actor Richard Kiel, who went on to play more very
tall people including the steel-toothed villain
"Jaws" in Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved
Me, makes his starring debut as the last surviving
stone age caveman. Smitten with a beautiful teenage
girl, he invades a rockin' pool party to steal her
away from her guitar-playing boyfriend. The stock
footage used (mostly of desert animals) is inserted
as artfully as Ed Wood (meaning it looks like you
changed the channel on your TV set all of a sudden)
and the dubbing of the dialogue rarely matches the
actor's mouths. Half the time, Richard Kiel's mouth
doesn't even move when you hear him speaking. I
wonder if they even bothered to watch the film while
recording the dialogue.
A
true low point in the history of cinema. What fun!
|
