That question is only half answered here. Hill seems to have had his chances: he almost got a film up under James T. Aubrey at MGM (which seems a natural fit) but claims his agent stuffed the negotiation; he wrote several scripts in the late 70s which were made - but shot in Canada so he couldn't direct them (I was unaware of this stage in his career - his credits include Death Ship, Sky Riders and City on Fire); he got up a film in the 80s with Roger Corman but had a bad fight with Corman over money so didn't make any more movies for him.
Still, you would've thought someone with such a strong track record of making low budget popular films that launched stars (well, one - Pam Grier) and helped establish genres (female blaxploitation, women in prison, cheerleaders) would never have been out of work, especially in the video era.
Still, you would've thought someone with such a strong track record of making low budget popular films that launched stars (well, one - Pam Grier) and helped establish genres (female blaxploitation, women in prison, cheerleaders) would never have been out of work, especially in the video era.
Maybe Hill didn't want it bad enough - he admits to not being super ambitious or career minded; he never had the self promotion capabilities of, say, Peter Bogdanovich. I also got the impression here he could be prickly - he takes a big swipe at Stephanie Rothman for the stuff she shot on Blood Bath (Waddell joins in on this, which I thought was unfair), calls Bogdanovich "a jerk" for not inviting him to a screening of The Last Picture Show, suggests Coppola (who came up at the same time as Hill) used his short film as inspiration for Apocalypse Now, mocks John Milius (whose Dillinger was made at the same time as Coffy and was meant to be a big hit but disappointed, apparently). Maybe he just worked so often with inadequate budgets on films that caused him too much hassle that he lost puff.
There are some great stories here: making those dodgy flicks with Boris Karloff in Mexico toward the end of the latter's life (Karloff was disappointed Targets didn't do that well and was angry at Corman for being ripped off apparently), trying to stop Ich, Ein Groupie from being a soft core porn in Germany, the partying antics of Roberta Collins (finally explaining to me why this beautiful, talented exploitation star never did more), his vision for Switchblade Sisters, the disaster of Sorceress (including a big fight with Corman whose penny pinching ways are not charming as described in this book).
Still, this book feels vaguely disappointing. Too much time is taken up with recaps of plots and Waddell's analysis of the film; he gets really hung up on some of their non-PC aspects, particularly gay jokes. I take his point about the rape jokes/scenes which always mar my enjoyment of Hill's movie but the gay comments are justified by the script (e.g. Pam Gier talking about lesbianism as being a "disease" in The Big Doll House it's clear to me in the film she doesn't mean what she's saying). I guess this is all personal, it depends on what offends you, but Waddell goes on about it so much at times I wondered why he bothered writing a book about Hill. The films are fun - at least to their fans - and this doesn't come across.
No comments:
Post a Comment