BY TODD GARBARINI
Movie-going
audience members under the age of forty will not recall motion picture
theatrical exhibition in the 1970s. It was a most interesting time when
drive-ins and even first-run movie theaters would pair up an older feature
film, generally one that was one to two years-old, with the main feature on a
double-bill. A handful of theaters in my area used to engage in midnight showings
of older films, too. One theater exclusively ran The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) for years while another
alternated between Stanley Kubrick's 2001:
A Space Odyssey (1968), Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards
(1971), Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains
the Same (1976), David Lynch's art-house favorite Eraserhead (1977) and Alan Parker's Pink Floyd The Wall (1982). Other showcases included uncensored
bloopers featuring Carol Burnett, the Three Stooges, and Abbott and Costello.
In
October 1978, Attack of the Killer
Tomatoes was unleashed upon the moviegoing public (filming had begun in
early 1977). The film is an effort to poke fun at the Japanese disaster and monster
invasion films of the 1950’s and 1960’s, movies that, according to director
John DeBello, were mostly unfamiliar to the moviegoing public. Billing itself
as a comedy, to today's eyes, it's really anything but that. Despite a few
laugh out-loud sequences the film, which runs nearly 90 minutes, feels nearly twice that length. There are many films that came
out during this era that are disjointed and suffer from ineffective editing like
Attack. Black Socks (aka Video Vixens)
(1974) was an effort to introduce hardcore sex into a comedy and failed
miserably. The Groove Tube (1974) and
Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video (1979) are two
other inane attempts at hilarity. However, there are some truly funny films in
this vein, as 1977’s Kentucky Fried Movie
and Airplane! in 1980, can attest to.
In Attack, there is a humorous scene
wherein military officials all cram into a small room for an impromptu meeting
to discuss the best course of action against the tomato attack; a sequence
involving a blind traffic cop; a badly dubbed Japanese official; and the
requisite Jaws parody – bested by the
aforementioned Airplane!
Attack recalls the similar premise of George
A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead
(1968) wherein dead bodies inexplicably are reanimated and begin feeding on
human flesh. The one major difference here is that the unsuspecting American
public is under attack by giant, killer tomatoes. The plot is almost too
convoluted to be believed for a send-up, but the basic premise involves the
government attempting to keep the seriousness of the tomato attacks under wraps
so as not to give way to mass hysteria and have to call in the military.
What
makes people laugh today is apparently different from what made people laugh forty
years ago. However, there are certain comedies that are timeless. No matter how
old I get, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges never
fail to make me laugh. There aren't too many films made in the last thirty to
forty years I can claim are able to do that. Even It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), with its television viewings
and innumerable home video releases, is still to this day laugh out-loud
hilarious. The interaction between all the characters is truly astonishing.
There is no such chemistry between anybody in Attack. I’ll admit it’s unfair to compare Stanley Kramer’s epic
comedy filled to the brim with comic geniuses who honed their talents for years
with a film put together by a group of movie fans who wanted to make a film. To
be fair, Attack probably was designed
to play at drive-ins where people had other things on their mind besides a
movie. And who can blame them? If you had to watch this film, you would do
better off filing your nails.
I
won't hold it against you if you're a fan of this film as I have my share of
guilty pleasures, and if you are a
fan then this DVD/Blu-ray is an absolute must-have. The restored, 4K transfer
is very colorful and the film has never looked batter. The 2003 DVD release had
several extras that have been ported over to this new release, and I will also
list the extras that for some reason fell by the wayside. I would love to see
half the number of extras lavished upon this film bestowed upon some of my
favorite and lesser-known films that I grew up watching. For a film of this
kind, the new DVD/Blu-ray combo set from MVD is jam-packed. It would have been nice if
they included a hilarious cut of the film itself!