The Lost Picture Show

The Lost Picture Show
Blu-ray
Vinegar Syndrome
1966-1974 / 843 min / 1.37:1 & 1.85:1
Starring Robert Dix, Rene Bond, Ray Molina
Written by Walter M. Berger, Oliver Drake
Photographed by Bruce G. Sparks, Glen Tracy
Directed by Walter Burns, Joe Sarno, Al Zugsmith

A grungy mix of sex, violence, and mushroom clouds, Vinegar Syndrome‘s The Lost Picture Show is a radioactive slice of American cheese, ten no-budget exploitation films produced during two of the most unstable decades in our country’s history. The movies reflect those tumultuous times but only inadvertently; the sub-amateurish nature of these productions signals only what comes after an apocalypse; all meaning is lost, chaos and bad 70s haircuts rule the day.

Credit Vinegar Syndrome‘s chutzpah, they lead off the set with 1970’s Barbara—promoted as a “Mondo Shocker,” the film follows a hairy band of hipsters exploring Fire Island with the Kama Sutra as their road map. Don’t mistake this for a glossy Radley Metzger fantasy; the obscure Walter Burns directed this eyesore, 91 minutes of simulated sex filmed in a grainy, ofttimes unfocused, black and white. Though the film supposedly revels in the pleasures of the flesh, it has all the allure of a high school scare film about “social diseases”—the bizarrely performative sex acts (there’s no hint of literal intercourse) defines “bumping uglies.”

If these bottom of the barrel cheapies have one attraction it’s being so far out of the mainstream they might, out of sheer dumb luck, do something innovative—certainly the convulsive atmosphere of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the near hysterical sensuality of Russ Meyer’s Vixen shows what could be accomplished by destitute but determined outsider artists. The films of The Lost Picture Show have more in common with the work of opportunistic hacks like Herschell Gordon Lewis. Directed by William Collins and written by Oliver and June Drake, The Las Vegas Strangler is the bastard child of Alfred Hitchcock and Andy Milligan, the story of yet another psycho killer with mommy issues, except this particular madman’s mom is alive and well and still nagging. Robert Dix plays her punching bag, a handsome lunatic with a bug up his ass about “certain” women.

The wayward nature of the set list can lead to some minor whiplash. After the seedy ambience of Barbara and Las Vegas Strangler, the set takes a left turn into The Last of the American Hoboes, a pseudo-documentary about road-weary nomads circa 1971. It’s followed by the extra-weird children’s film, The Rare Blue Apes of Cannibal Isle, a musicalized fever dream with terrifying costumes reminiscent of a Black Sabbath Mardi Gras.

Dumbstruck viewers may have just gotten back their sea legs when The Sex Serum of Dr. Blake drops in their lap—it’s not about a mutant strain of viagra but a sexed-up science-fiction vampire tale better known in its bowdlerized form, Voodoo Heartbeat. Bad Haircut Alert: surely Ray Molina’s nuclear-powered sideburns belong in the Fat Elvis Hall of Fame.

Begun in the early 70s by adult film actor Bill Cable and completed by adult film director Carlos Tobalina in 1987, What’s Love is a sex-soaked vanity project in the mode of Anthony Newley’s  Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? Patched together over the gulf of a decade, What’s Love is unsurprisingly disjointed and aimless—even the nostalgic presence of adult film pros like Colleen Brennan and Ginger Lynn can’t rouse us (for once). That frisky duo certainly could have rescued Joe Sarno (Inga) and Al Zugsmith (Sex Kittens go to College and Confessions of an Opium Eater), the sole “name” directors in this set.

In 1968 more explicit material was creeping into the relatively infantile nudie cutie market (the box office success of I Am Curious (Yellow) may have burst the dam). But Sarno, always more formal in his erotica, still keeps the action relatively demure; Deep Inside, the story of a “frigid” woman and the people under her heel is a repetitive waste of time, bed-hopping never looked so boring; when a skin flick has to depend on its actor’s acting chops instead of their gyrations, all hope is lost. Zugsmith’s Violated is at the other end of the trashy teeter totter, the discombobulated editing seems to be aping the unpredictable impulses of the sadistic killer who disfigures his victims with a swastika tattoo. Tiny Rene Bond throws her weight around as a pissed-off sex-kitten out for revenge.

“Foreign agents caught in plan to nuke America” was the front page of no newspaper that was ever printed—that fear-mongering notion was the brainchild of a Massachusetts optometrist named James Newslow, the neophyte producer/director of 1966’s Red Midnight. The story, a cautionary cold-war thriller about a terrorist plan to irradiate America one state at a time, could have sprung from a hundred paperback spy thrillers of the sixties or as many red-scare pamphlets from the John Birch Society. By now it should come as no surprise that this production is as inept as the other films in this set, resorting to preposterously unsexy sex scenes to keep the raincoat crowd tuned in, a perfect complement to the action scenes with no action.

If there’s one thing about the set that inspires admiration, it’s Vinegar Syndrome‘s remarkable restorations of these films. Beware the Black Widow, a soft core noir about a mystery killer loose in lower Manhattan’s red light district, features one of the most beautiful black and white transfers in the last few years. Produced in 1968, Glen Tracy’s photography is “not bad” to “kinda nice” and it makes Larry Crane’s silly slasher at least reasonably watchable if not respectable. Special Runner-Up trophy goes to Crane’s self-penned, self-sung title song. Katie bar the doors.

The Lost Picture Show is saved from the trash bin thanks to Vinegar Syndrome‘s comprehensive extras featuring extensive promotional material, outtakes and, of most interest, a long-form production called Against the Grain – a feature-length documentary about the ongoing efforts to recover and restore films that are lost or simply forgotten.

The set also features introductions for each film from members of the Vinegar Syndrome team and what a fine crew they are, enthusiastic and knowledgeable, they’re the real heroes of the story.

Here’s the complete rundown of films and extras via the Vinegar Syndrome website.