Dynamite Chicken

Directed by Ernest Pintoff (best known for his collaboration with Mel Brooks on the wonderful animated short The Critic), Dynamite Chicken is self-described in the opening credits as "A contemporary probe and commentary of the mores and maladies of our age.....with shtick, bits, pieces, girls, some hamburger, a little hair, a lady, some fellas, some religious stuff, and a lot of other things." The roster of names in the opening credits includes Paul Krasner, Peter Max, Alan Ginsberg, Al Goldstein, Lenny Bruce, Joan Baez, Malcolm X, The Velvet Underground, and John & Yoko.

To call Dynamite Chicken revolutionary is to do a disservice to the true revolutionaries of the era, many of whom coincidentally appear in the film (however posthumously; as was the case with Lenny Bruce and Malcolm X). During its conception, it required significant effort to cull such diverse voices and images to create an entertaining yet critical take on the status quo, and the resulting film stands as a worthy artifact of the era.

Today, all it takes is a laptop and a handful of YouTube clips to create a film like this.

Consisting of a series of thematic segments very loosely linked by footage of Richard Pryor riffing directly into the camera while wandering around a beat-up playground somewhere in New York, Pryor occasionally slips into bits that would become staples of his standup routine but his presence here is strictly to take us to the bridge.

The material is built for short attention spans (ala the tuned-in turned-on crowd), and the visual freak-outs begin right about the time the drugs would kick in. Psychedelic concert footage (of Sha Na Na, believe it or not) is intercut with old movie clips (e.g., Victor Mature in Samson and Delilah) and seemingly endless footage of naked curvaceous hippies dancing or doing calisthenics (If closeups of the mons pubis is your thing, this is the film for you.). This is supplemented with moments of agit-prop and pop-art; man-on-the-street interviews with toothless patriots talking about the flag, Andy Warhol recording Ondine reading from Warhol's novel a, some Frank Lauria poetry and jazz, and some creepy footage and interviews with workers at one of the first Burger King restaurants that would fit very nicely into Fast Food Nation.

It goes without saying that the sexual revolution is addressed, and Pintoff chose some interesting spokespeople. On the one side, Al Goldstein and Jim Buckley, who (in nausea inducing fish-eye closeups) espouse the theory behind Screw magazine, and on the other some unidentified feminist theorists discussing female sexuality and the use of derogatory language towards women.

Other highlights include shtick from the Ace Trucking Company, a comedy troupe that featured Fred Willard and Match Game regular Patti Deutsch, and a remarkable scene with Ron Carey dressed as priest outfitted in a Joliet Jake hat and shades doing a dance in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral to Lionel Goldbart's God Loves Rock and Roll while somewhere else a nun does a striptease.





I'm ripping the DVD and will have it available for a temporary download shortly...