By
Hank Reineke
Generally speaking, I happen to watch more bad movies
than good ones… and I suppose that any film which includes the breathless line,
“It’s too bad we didn’t bring the dune
buggy!†suggests I’m likely in the midst of another. In truth, I sort of knew this going into Arch
Hall Sr.’s cult classic EEGAH (1962),
a bona fide drive-in circuit masterpiece. This film has long suffered ignobility partly due to the circulation of tattered
prints relegated to the Public Domain. The film’s PD fate partly explains its inclusion in practically every
budget-label 50 or 100 count horror and sci-fi multi-film DVD collection ever
marketed. Happily – if somewhat
curiously - Film Detective has bravely rescued the film – and its fans - from
the gray-market, washed-out, faded and deteriorating prints of which we’ve been
accustomed, sharing with us this brand new 4K transfer to Blu-ray from an
original 35mm camera negative.
The real question I suppose is whether or not EEGAH deserves such white-glove
attention? I will reason that it does,
especially as I have no financial interest or skin in the game. It’s nothing if not a fun film; a completely
nutty and perfect jewel of non-pretentious, time-capsule-exploitative-entertainment. It’s also of some train-spotting, fan-boy interest
as the film features the decidedly fresh-faced, twenty-one year old, 7’ 2â€
actor Richard Kiel (“Jaws†of the James Bond films) as the titular EEGAH. EEGAH is, apparently, a brooding prehistoric
cave dweller who has somehow managed to survive well into the early 1960s, unnoticed,
unwashed and unloved, in the Coachella Valley of Southern Californian
Mountains.
EEGAH’s curious, eon-spanning survival is never explained
to scientific satisfaction in Bob Wehling’s dotty script adapted from Arch Hall
Sr.’s original story. Sweet Roxy Miller’s adventure-writer father Mr. Miller (also
played by Arch Hall Sr.) opines – not unreasonably – that the caveman is likely
the last of his line. But he gives us no
indication of how he’s intellectually arrived at his totally non-scientifically
tested, off-the-cuff conclusion. By his best
ballpark estimate the savage primitive has managed to survive perhaps “fifty to
one hundred years†following the passing of even EEGAH’s most recent forebear. In some manner of speaking EEGAH still lives alongside his now all-but-extinct
extended family in his lonely mountainside cave. Except they now reside there as little more
than well cared for mummified remains.
EEGAH’s survival has seemingly gone on unnoticed until
one dark night on a deserted road when sweet Roxy (Marilyn Manning) nearly plows
into him with her banana yellow sport coupe. While EEGAH grimaces and growls and postures menacingly, it’s apparent
that he’s somewhat smitten with his hit-and-run paramour. The girl manages to escape their impromptu
meet-up and soon relates the details of her strange run in to her disbelieving
boyfriend Tom (Arch Hall, Jr.) and her aforementioned father. Acknowledging the mystery would be best investigated
by a responsible adult, Dad Miller is apparently unable to find one. He chooses to go off on his own, hiring a
helicopter to take him into the deep ravines within Shadow Mountain. Dressed resplendently in white safari shirt,
shorts, and pit helmet, Miller disembarks the copter for an ill-prepared solo expedition. He carries little more than a small tartan
satchel and a Brownie camera to support him on his overnight camping trip.
When he fails to appear at the pre-arranged pick-up site
the following day, heartthrob Tom and Roxy rush to the designated spot in the
hot desert in Tom’s cool dune buggy (“The tires are filled with water,†he
tells his girlfriend, the extra weight giving them better “traction in the
sandâ€). As an aside, actor Hall Jr. recalled
the dune buggy featured in the film was actually the most authentic and menacing
monster of the production. Though it had
once been a 1939 Plymouth Sedan it was now, in the actor’s own parlance “a
deathtrap,†since it had been amateurishly converted into a buggy and welded
back together poorly with no semblance of supportive structure. He recalled a few instances where he was
literally pinned under a wreckage of metal, the crew scrambling to pull him
free from the crushing weight.
In any event, it’s not long before EEGAH kidnaps the girl
and brings her to his cave. Dad, she
discovers, is already there, generally unharmed save for a possible broken
collarbone. When she’s about to rage
against the caveman about this violence presumably perpetrated by EEGAH against
her ailing father, Dad assures her that the caveman was not the cause of the
fracture: “I did that myself when I fell
on my camera,†he tells her. EEGAH isn’t actually a bad sort. He’s simply a man out of time, a lonely lost
soul in the manner of Victor Hugo’s The
Hunchback of Notre Dame. It’s in
this twist that the already queasy love story promised in the film’s
promotional materials becomes most apparent: “The Crazed Love of a Prehistoric
Giant for a Ravishing Teenage Girl! Primitive Passions Turned On! “Love Breaks
the Time Barrier!â€
Originally photographed in Eastman Color, the 35mm
negative used to source this Blu-ray 4K restoration from Film Detective is
superb. The color is particularly
vibrant and warm, perfectly bringing out the rich fire-engine red of the Texaco
fuel pumps and the coral blue of the sun-drenched hotel pool waters. Though the print does reveal instances of
speckling, occasional scratches and minor damage, these issues are generally
minor and rarely visually distractive. If you’re a collector who absolutely needs to have a copy of EEGAH in their personal film library –
and I imagine if you’ve read this far you just might be – then this Blu-ray release
is, without question, the one to seek out.
One can make a strong case that EEGAH might be the definitive drive-in movie. It certainly has all the necessary
ingredients: a club-wielding prehistoric caveman, a pretty brunette in danger,
teenagers that rock n’ roll poolside, a rad dune buggy that bounces wildly on desert
sand to a cool surf-rock soundtrack, cringe-inducing dialogue and mostly
amateurish performances. Arch Hall, Jr.
admits in a candid and informative interview included here with this set that
most members of the cast were not professionals. The company was mostly comprised of family
members or friends and associates of his father… his Dad’s directorship billed under
the pseudonym of Nicholas Merriwether.
Hall Sr.’s decision to include non-professionals behind
the camera proved to be more troublesome. Richard Kiel recalled to author Tom Weaver (in the latter’s seminal tome,
Eye on Science Fiction: 20 Interviews
with Classic Sci-Fi and Horror Filmmakers (McFarland, 2003), that more than
a week’s worth of sound recording was rendered unusable due to Hall’s misplaced
trust in one particular hire. He had secured
the services of friend and local radio announcer Bob Davis to act as the film’s
sound recordist. Unfortunately, Davis
had misled him vis-a-vis his abilities in the art of sound recording. The radio pro had absolutely no idea what he
was doing, and this technical shortfall resulted in the director having to re-dub
some ten days’ worth of unusable dialogue due to this amateurism. One can get a glimpse of Davis’s actual
personage since he was also able to secure a small role in the film as a
drunken stumblebum.
Most of EEGAH
was filmed in and around the area of Palm Springs and among the sand dunes of
Palm Desert, California. The rugged
terrain which housed the prehistoric man’s cave was photographed in the area of
Shadow Mountain, just north of Palm Desert. The nightclub and swanky hotel and poolside settings were filmed on
location at such resorts as Palm Springs’ Ocotillo Lounge and Shadow Mountain
club. These location scenes all work well, capturing the innocent sun-drenched
attitude and style of the time. Less
successful is the design of the caveman’s mountain lair. This was the only primary set shot on a
soundstage leased as a three-day rental. The caveman’s base was to be designed, constructed, photographed and struck
within this brief span. The set appears
to be exactly what it is: an inauthentic composite of molded plastic and
blue-gray draperies weakly simulating a genuine cavern.
Though appearing as the film’s title character, actor
Richard Kiel is third-billed. Though he
had already made a few impressionable if usually uncredited walk-ons as heavies
on television westerns - and one unforgettable turn on The Twilight Zone - EEGAH
would be the actor’s first feature film role of consequence. He has no dialogue – even his Pleistocene-era
grunts were subsequently dubbed by Hall Sr. – but he nonetheless makes a
striking on-screen impression. His
scraggly, long-haired and bearded wild man look, which must have appeared
unruly and unusual in 1962, would soon appear stylish and commonplace on the
streets of Haight-Ashbury five years hence. Though Kiel’s EEGAH gestures menacingly with his primitive club and
throws a lot of rocks at his enemies, he’s not a bad sort deep down inside. Even
terrorized Roxy recognizes this from the beginning, correcting her father’s description
of her attacker as “a monster.†He’s
“not a monster,†she sighs to Dad, he’s merely “a prehistoric giant.â€
Of course not just anyone can convincingly deliver a line
of dialogue like that, and actress Marilyn Manning is no exception to that rule.
Manning’s Roxy is certainly sweet and sexy - and she looks undeniably great in
a two-piece bathing suit - but she’s no schooled actress in the tradition of
Helen Hayes. Her three film career was the
result of her castings in a trio of Arch Hall Sr. associated productions, and
Kiel intimated - but wasn’t certain - if she was perhaps romantically involved
with him off-screen.
This is Arch Hall Jr.’s second turn as an actor in one of
his father’s films. His first casting (at
age fifteen and a half) was as a young car-stripper in The Choppers (1959), a film that went out onto the circuit with
little distribution. As Tom, the
handsome, blue-eyed, perfectly coiffed boyfriend of the beleaguered Roxy, Hall
Jr. acquits himself well enough for a teen who, in real life, had just
graduated high school in the spring of 1961. This actor/musician’s best performance was yet to come when he
convincingly portrayed the titular character of The Sadist (1963) a low-budget but surprisingly riveting suspense
film directed by James Landis. Hall
doesn’t turn in a bad performance in EEGAH,
he’s merely inexperienced and… well, saddled with awkward dialogue and a script
premise that’s less than average by any standard.
This being a drive-in flick from 1962, the film breaks
occasionally into pop-music interludes, Hall strumming an electric Fender
guitar in a rudimentary manner and crooning puppy love songs attesting to the
glories of such gals as “Vickie†and “Valerie.†The songs are little more than light Ricky Nelson-ish teenage romance
ballads, but they’re pleasant enough in their execution. In 1962 the Hollywood based Spectra Records
label even issued a 45rpm single of “Vickie†b/w “Valerie†as (Spectra
45-101-A/B) as a promotional tie-in to the film’s release. If you’ve unable to find this particular
collector’s item within the interceding fifty-seven years, fear not. Completists can be directed to seek out a
copy of the Norton Records label issued CD Wild
Guitar: Arch Hall, Jr. and the Archers (Norton 307). This CD collects the entirety of Hall’s
musical performances from such films as Wild
Guitar, EEGAH, The Sadist and The Choppers, as well as excerpts of head-scratching dialogue
extracted from the film soundtracks. Much like this film, this CD collection will induce a smile or two.
Film Detective’s “Special Edition†4K Blu-ray issue of EEGAH was taken from an original 35mm camera
negative. The film is presented in Dolby
Digital Sound with an aspect ratio of 1.66:1. Limited to a pressing of only 1, 500 copies it’s sure to become a collector’s
item, and this 2019 restoration by Peter Conheim of the Cinema Preservation
Alliance pretty much renders all those earlier public domain versions of this
film obsolete. Alongside the genuine
1962 theatrically screened version of the film, the set also includes the
amusing 1993 Mystery Science Theater 3000 riff of the same - along with a
commentary on that particular production by that show’s original host Joel
Hodgson. More illuminating is the
interview with Arch Hall Jr. who reminisces with more kindness and nostalgia
about his father’s work in the film and radio industry in general and on this
film in particular.
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