Original subtitles

♪

-♪ Hey, everybody, have you heard the news? ♪

♪ Joe Bob is back in town

♪ He's over at the drive-in, hanging around ♪

♪ Watching crazy movies, so come on down ♪

♪ To Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ Blood, beasties, boobies, and more ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's a spooky good time with monsters and ghosts ♪

♪ Crazy, kooky fun with the world's greatest host ♪

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's gonna be legendary

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ It's gonna be very scary

♪ Joe Bob's "Last Drive-In" show ♪

♪ Let's go

♪

[Static crackles]

-Okay, Darcy, take notes on this.

I've decided the following terms

can no longer be used on this show.

-Do I really need to take notes?

-Yes. We need to be developing a "Last Drive-In" style guide.

So, let me put it this way.

Using any of these phrases will be regarded as profanity.

-Fuck!

-Is that a comment? -[Laughs]

-I'm just saying we don't really care about profanity

here in the first place.

-Okay, let me put it this way.

After I finish this rant,

you will not want to say any of these phrases.

-Will it annoy you if I say them?

-Yes. -Then no promises.

-Okay. -Numero uno..."Hidden Gem."

-I know where you're going with this one.

-I haven't started yet!

How can you know where I'm going?

-Because once in a while,

I actually listened to you when you're not on camera.

-Okay. I guess I've talked about this before,

but people want me to tell them about the "hidden gem,"

the great movie that no one knows about.

People assume that somebody in 1947 made a 35-millimeter film

that played in one theater in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

But then it got tied up in litigation,

and the producer/director died of syphilis,

and the only print was assumed to be lost.

But, really, all this time, it's been stored

in the backroom of a grain-storage facility

in Iowa City

because the syphilitic genius who created it

left it in his will

to the mentally impaired son of his estranged brother.

And the nephew used the film cans for bowling-ball cases.

And then one entire reel was warped after being soaked

in grape juice

and left on the ledge of a barred window

at the Iowa Lunatic Asylum in Mount Pleasant

after the nephew died intestate.

A Henry County deputy sheriff found the can in 1998

and gave it to the projectionist

at the Temple Theater on Main Street,

and he eventually screened it for Lonnie Wilson,

editor and publisher of a fanzine in western Nebraska,

and Lonnie then spent the next 20 years tracking down

the other reels, restoring them frame by frame,

and writing letters to Quentin Tarantino

so that he could unveil his hidden gem

at the Sheboygan Theater on Eighth Street

after a preview at the Wild Wicked Weekend horror convention

in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Does that about sum up how it works?

-You think those "discovery" stories are fake?

-Not necessarily fake, just really, really exaggerated.

There are no hidden gems.

There are 30 trillion words on the Internet.

If the movie exists, it's not hidden.

Somebody knows about it.

Any film produced between 1888 and yesterday

is not only known to exist

but has probably been released to the public

somewhere, somehow.

-I don't think anybody thinks that

tonight's movie is a hidden gem.

-Well, but for a long time they did.

And I'm going to explain exactly how that works.

But let me do this first. -Okay.

-Numero two-oh... "Neglected Masterpiece."

Just because nobody knew about the film

for 50 years does not make it a neglected masterpiece.

Some movies are just neglected.

It could be a neglected piece of crapola.

Numero three-oh... "Rediscovered Cult Classic."

You know what this means?

Somebody found a bunch of old movies in cardboard boxes

in a storage unit in Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky,

and tried to make some money off stuff in the public domain.

We can't have 17,000 cult classics.

They can't be all cult classics.

If they're all cult classics,

then my grandpa's Kodak 8-millimeter Christmas movies

made with a light panel so hot it could set the tree on fire

would be taught in film schools.

The best one grandpa ever made was

"Joe Bob Refuses to Remove His Cowboy Hat for Five Weeks,

Including While Sleeping,

Due to an Embarrassing Burr Haircut."

That movie consists entirely of scenes in which

my sisters violently try to knock the hat off my head.

Do you see what I'm talking about here?

I mean, we showed "Demon Wind" on this show,

and it was fun and everything,

but three weeks later it was being touted as a cult classic

and they were having midnight screenings

all across the country.

"Demon Wind" is not a cult classic,

and neither are 98% of the other cult classics.

-Can I please get a copy of that movie with your sisters?

-No! It's not a cult classic.

-It is to me. -All right.

-But the cult classics aren't cult classics?

-No, most of them are not.

Okay. Numero four-oh...

"Taking the Festival Circuit by Storm."

No, you're not.

[Laughter]

You got runner-up for best cinematography

at the Senegalese Fantasy Festival

held at a cheap hotel in Dakar.

Get over yourself! Numero five-oh...

"Lovingly Restored."

You scrubbed all the sweat stains

off the pock-marked celluloid and fixed a splice.

You know what's funny about this?

Some theaters refuse to show anything

but an original 35-millimeter print

when there's a perfectly good restored version on a Blu-ray.

My buddy Jeff Lieberman was invited to Quentin Tarantino's

New Beverly Theater in L.A.

so they could honor his 1981 slasher "Just Before Dawn,"

and he begged them to show the Blu-ray,

which had been cleaned up,

and it showed all the beautiful

panoramic-landscape shots that he got in the Oregon mountains.

The original prints had turned kind of pink and murky,

but the theater absolutely refused.

They said their motto was "Always on film."

And not only did the picture suck,

but about 20 minutes into the film,

the sprocket got stuck, and several frames burned up.

You know how that happens when you see a flame in front of you?

It took another 20 minutes to splice the film back together

and restart it.

Anyway, it can be lovingly restored,

but it can still be crap!

And even if it is lovingly restored,

Quentin Tarantino doesn't care.

-You know, he made "Satan's Little Helper."

-Jeff Lieberman.

Yes, he did. He made "Satan's Little Helper."

So, all right.

-We really, really have to show that one.

-What? You love "Satan's Little Helper"?

-Yes, I love "Satan's Little Helper."

Like, so much. I've been asking for it forever!

-Actually, Jeff and I are going to go to Belmont Park

and feed the ponies next week.

So, I'll tell you what.

I'll ask him about "Satan's Little Helper."

-Oh, my God, please.

But, also, you're going to go feed ponies?

That's so sweet.

-Don't be sarcastic, Darcy. -That's not sarcastic.

-Okay, I have one more profane phrase to talk about.

Numero six-oh... "Rescued from Obscurity."

It was not rescued. It developed some fanboys,

many of whom love it because everybody else hates it.

-What about fangirls? -It's possible.

But the rescue-from-obscurity fable is usually a guy

who never leaves his apartment

and spends every waking hour trying

to get people to appreciate the genius

of "Evil Wore Spiked Heels, Part 3."

Even when he gets that big Alamo Drafthouse screening in Lubbock,

the rescue doesn't inspire any other first responders.

But he'll tell us all about the moment

when "We thought it was lost forever,

but we fished it out of a toilet in Gatlinburg."

Okay. Why am I doing this?

Because we're showing "Carnival of Souls" tonight.

-Yay! Whoo!

-Carnival of Souls" is the second-most popular movie

on local cable horror shows.

And you know why?

-Because it's free!

-That's right. It is in public domain.

So, if you're starting out as a YouTube horror host,

first you show "Night of the Living Dead."

then your second movie will be "Carnival of Souls."

But as recently as 1989,

"Carnival of Souls" was unknown to almost everybody.

It was released in 1962,

but it was not seen by anyone until 27 years later.

And it's a great film.

So, it sort of fought its way out of obscurity.

It set up the formula for releasing an old movie

that's gone out of copyright. So it's an actual hidden gem.

It's an actual neglected masterpiece.

It's become a cult classic.

It did take the festival circuit by storm.

It was lovingly restored by the Criterion Collection.

And it was rescued from obscurity.

I've seen two or three different people take credit

for doing the rescue,

but the director had saved the answer print,

and he had stored it in a temperature-controlled place.

So, it was sort of rescued by him.

At any rate, he thing "Carnival of Souls" had going

for it was college professors.

If you can get the college professors behind a movie

that they would have refused to send their kids to

when it first came out, you win! And ever since then,

various college professors have been finding old movies

and saying, "Hey, this might be another 'Carnival of Souls.'"

And usually they're big, fat liars.

In fact, maybe the reason a college professor liked

"Carnival of Souls" so much is that it was directed

by a college professor, Herk Harvey,

the only person I've ever heard of who got a PhD in theater.

Besides making 400 films,

he was a professor at the University of Kansas.

So, "Carnival of Souls" was made in 1962, in Lawrence, Kansas.

It was made by real people, normal drive-in people,

people who love zombies, ghosts, dancing, bloody corpses.

But when they first put it out, nobody understood it.

No, wait. Let me correct that.

The people who go see drive-in movies understood it,

but the critics didn't like it,

and the theater owners didn't like it.

And the distribution company thought,

"Well, it's kind of a strange movie."

And so they do an ad campaign that basically says,

"Watch this because it's weird,"

which is never a winning marketing strategy.

And the church didn't like it

because it seems to be making fun of religious people.

And so, it just kind of dried up and petered out.

And the original investors lost all their money.

And then, ten years later, it turns up

on the late, late, late show in a drastically cut version,

and you're watching it and you're saying, "Hey, look.

He ripped off George Romero

in 'Night of the Living Dead.'"

But then you see the movie was released in 1962,

six years before "Night of the Living Dead."

So, bingo! Cult classic.

All of a sudden people want to know,

who is this guy that made this movie?

And so then a bunch of guys start doing research

and they find Herk Harvey,

and they find out this was his only feature film he ever made.

-I'm sorry, but didn't you just say he made 400 films?

-Yeah, he did, but they were not feature films.

-Oh, sorry. -I'll get to that in a minute.

And it stars a gal named Candace Hilligoss.

And this was the only starring role she ever had.

And then you find out

that Brian De Palma stole a lot of the stuff

he used in "Carrie" from "Carnival of Souls,"

and then the next thing you know, oh, God, not that!

The New York Times is writing about it.

Does anybody remember Vincent Canby,

the most boring man alive? Anybody?

He was the chief film critic at The Times,

and he decided to be --

this is a good story about Vincent Canby.

He decided it was going to be really hip

and review "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"...

in 1985, 11 years after it came out!

[Laughter]

-Wow.

-And while we're on that subject,

I was offended that The New York Timeswrote a big,

adoring obituary for Roger Corman

when he passed away earlier this year,

when they gave zero love to his movies as a director

and rarely any of his movies as a producer.

In fact, some of his movies never got reviewed at all

by The New York Times.

They should at least say in the obituary

that they have revised their opinion of his importance.

-Well, you really hate The New York Times.

-Well, I don't really like their arrogance.

Okay, where was I? Look in your notes.

-They're thorough.

The media discovered "Carnival of Souls."

-Right. The media discovered "Carnival of Souls."

Thank you. -You're welcome.

-And then somebody that works at a film museum

decides to go back to Lawrence, Kansas,

and find Herk Harvey

and see if they can't get a perfect, mint-condition,

35-millimeter print of the movie.

And then it gets its world re-premiere at a film festival.

And in this case, I was at the festival,

the USA Film Festival in Dallas. And if I remember correctly,

the discoverer was Gordon K. Smith.

And then before you know it,

it's booked at Film Forum in New York.

There are tribute screenings everywhere.

You got 900 guys in suits paying $500 each

to watch a movie that in 1962

they would have dismissed as a pile of garbage.

And in fact, the movie was shown in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1990,

first time in 28 years, as a benefit

for the city's film commission.

Yes, they have a film commission in Lawrence, Kansas.

-Okay. So, sorry.

I just want to make sure I get this right.

You made a list of all the things

that we should not say about movies.

-Yes. -Okay.

But you literally just said all of that

about "Carnival of Souls."

-Well, yes, because this was the true one,

where all these things are true,

that all the false ones are copying.

-Ahh! But did you really need to refer to the false ones?

-No. -But you couldn't resist.

-Oh, I'm saying that before they became marketing gimmicks,

these words had meaning.

But I also can't resist pointing out

that lame people are having premieres for the movie in 1990,

when the movie already had its real premiere at the drive-in.

And it will always be a drive-in movie,

no matter how many books are published about it

by university presses.

And I don't like it when Siskel and Ebert and Leonard Maltin

and the UCLA Department of Film suddenly say,

"Oh, okay, it's all right now to watch this

particular exploitation movie. It's not as gross as the others"

because that's a form of censorship

just like the Video Nasty List was a form of censorship.

It's like a reverse Video Nasty List.

"We're going to tell you which movies are okay to watch."

The Catholic Church does the same thing.

They have a list of movies that are okay to watch.

But these critics and professors

are the same people who call "I Spit on Your Grave"

the most disgusting movie ever made.

Why? Hadn't been reviewed by The New York "Slimes,"

hadn't been shown at the USA Film Festival.

I don't like it when the eggheads steal our heritage.

-Well, all right, then.

I think your defense was a strong one.

But you know what?

We should probably show the movie now.

-And we will. -Okay.

-And what we have here is the sensitive story

of a church organist

who's the only survivor in a car that gets run off a bridge

during a drag race.

But once she gets out of the water,

she loses her desire for men, for beer and for her own family.

All she wants to do is play the organ

at all hours of the day and night

and poke around in this creepy, abandoned amusement park

where the zombies come every night to waltz.

A doctor tries to tell her she's having a guilt feeling.

The man who lives across the hall

and hits on her every chance he gets

tells her she's off her rocker.

The preacher says she's profane.

Her landlady says, "You just let

your imagination run away with you."

The guy at the gas station says she has a transmission problem.

And the zombies tell her, "Come with us.

Come and dance."

What's a poor, single girl in a strange town to do?

Let me put it this way.

She wears out quite a few pairs of high heels

running to where she's got to go.

So, let's look at the drive-in totals and get started.

We have 19 dead bodies, 16 undead bodies, no breasts.

And there was a chance to grab some.

One motor vehicle chase with watery crash,

zombie bus tour,

one abandoned carnival pavilion, one supernatural stalker,

church organ fu, zombie fu,

"Drive-In" Academy Award nominations

for Candace Hilligoss

as the wandering pipe-organ enthusiast

for saying, "I don't belong in the world" and "In the dark,

your fantasies get so far out of hand."

Francis Feist as the creepy, old rooming-house lady for saying,

"You can take all the baths you want."

Art Ellison

as the minister for saying, "You cannot live

in isolation from the human race, you know?"

Sidney Berger as the letch next door for saying,

"You're going to need me in the evening.

You just don't know it yet."

And Herk Harvey for producing,

directing, and playing

the head zombie.

"Drive-in" Hall of Fame --

four stars.

Joe Bob says, "Check it out."

You know, and there's some breathtaking cinematography

in this thing.

In fact, I want to add

a "Drive-In" Academy Award nomination.

Can you put the "Drive-In" totals back up, Austin?

-Sure. Here you go. -Okay.

Maurice Prather working mostly handheld

with a 75-pound Arriflex

and just a 5-man crew and available light.

And he creates truly amazing images

that creep you the fuck out.

This was made at a time

when there were still camera guys who knew

how to shoot gorgeous black and white.

With a movie like this,

everything looks spookier in black and white,

and I think actors look better in black and white.

-Maybe we should do the "Last Drive-In" in black and white.

-Hmm. -Hmm?

-I don't know. Austin, is that even possible?

-Yeah, I think we could do that. Give me a second.

-Yay. -Yeah.

-Kansas has to be in black and white.

Because, remember, in "The Wizard of Oz,"

the part in Kansas is black and white.

And then when she lands in Oz, it turns to color.

And they used to have to put text crawls

when it would play on TV.

"There is nothing wrong with your set.

The first part of the movie is in black and white."

-Wow. -And then...oh.

-There you go.

-Ooh!

-That was quick.

Darcy? -I'm digging it.

-Look, I'm sitting next to Jean Harlow.

No, it's Marlene Dietrich.

No! Maybe it's Grace Kelly. -Toni Storm.

-No. Those are the only ones I can think of who were blonde.

Why didn't they use more blondes?

Maybe black and white wasn't good for blonde.

Maybe nobody went blonde in the '20s and '30s and '40s.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! I know one. Veronica Lake.

Veronica Lake.

The blonde was always the femme fatale.

How appropriate.

-What does that mean?

-The blonde was always the bad girl.

-Oh. How appropriate.

-I told you.

What do I look like in black and white?

Jimmy Stewart or Rock Hudson?

-Honestly, I'm seeing Art Carney.

-Art Carney? I don't look like Art Carney.

-Oh, I'm sticking with Art Carney.

[Laughter]

♪

♪

-Hey, Joe, drag your foot, boy. Look what we got here.

Hey, you wanna drag, huh?

-Sure. -[Laughs]

-Come on, man. Get ready.

[Engines revving]

[Tires screeching]

-I'll show them how to drive. Just watch me.

[Horn honks]

[Tires screeching]

[Clanging]

-Aahhh!

[Water gurgling]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-Sir, as high as this river is right now and with all

the mud and sand it's carryin', they may never find that car.

-There were three girls in it.

-Unh-unh.

-Right there.

-All right, now, let's hear your story about how it happened.

-It wasn't our fault, sir.

-Yeah?

-We were the first ones on the bridge and coming

a-along, following the tracks, and they wanted

to get around us, I guess, and they lost control,

and they dropped off.

-You sure you didn't crowd 'em off?

♪

♪

-Three hours.

-Yeah? Not sure I wanna find that car now.

-With this sand and with that current,

we may never find 'em.

-Yeah, all I guess we can do is keep tryin'.

♪

-Come on. Let's get down!

♪

♪

♪

-Come on. Let's get down there.

♪

♪

♪

-Uh, it's Mary Henry.

-Are you all right?

-How'd you get out?

-Here, put this on.

We better get you back to town.

-What about the other girls?

-I don't remember.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Car door opens]

[Car door closes]

[Organ plays]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-Is this like the one I'll be playing in Utah?

-It's quite similar.

I supervised the installation myself.

The accident won't delay your going, will it?

-No. I'm leaving this morning.

There's nothing I can do here.

-That's right.

Well, Mary, you'll make a fine organist

for that church.

Be very satisfying to you, I think.

-It's just a job to me.

-Well, it's not quite the attitude

for going into church work.

-I'm not taking the vows.

I'm only going to play the organ.

-Oh, you want more than that.

Of course, it doesn't pay much, but, well,

at least it's a start.

Are you driving by Benton to see your folks?

-No. I can't.

I-I-I must hurry. I-I-I've got to leave.

I'm going to drive straight through.

-Mary, it takes more than intellect to be a musician.

Put your soul into it a little, okay?

Good luck, Mary.

Stop by and see us the next time you're in.

-Thank you, but I'm never coming back.

[Motor whirring]

♪

♪

[Static crackles]

[Upbeat music plays]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Suspenseful music plays]

♪

♪

[Tempo quickens]

♪

♪

♪

[Gasps]

[Engine revs]

♪

♪

♪

[Gasps]

[Tires screeching]

[Engine sputters]

[Tires screeching]

♪

-Been savin' it for you since I got your letter.

Could've rented it yesterday, if I'd wanted.

-Oh, it-it's fine.

It-it's just about what I expected.

-I knew you'd like it.

This ain't no regular roomin' house, you know.

I only got you and Mr. Linden across the hall.

Each room's got its own private bathroom, too.

You can take all the baths you want.

I'm not one to fuss about things like that.

-Thank you.

I think I'll be quite comfortable.

-Well, hope you'll stay a while.

I'm downstairs, in the back part of the house,

so if there's anything else you need,

I guess it'll have to wait till morning.

Good night.

-Good night, Mrs. Thomas.

[Suspenseful music plays]

♪

♪

♪

♪

-And this, Miss Henry, is our pride and joy.

-You know, this was made in the same town

where I've been studying.

-Of course.

That's where we heard about you.

Oh, by the way, you have found a place to stay?

-Yes, I have a room.

-Good.

Well, we hope you're going to like it here.

We're not the largest church in this area, of course,

but we have a nice congregation.

We'll have to have some sort of reception.

They'll want to meet you.

-Couldn't we just skip that?

-Skip that?

Well, I don't suppose it's an absolute necessity.

I don't know what some of the ladies will say.

-If they say I'm a fine organist,

that should be enough, shouldn't it?

-Well, yes, of course.

We'll let it go at that for the time being.

But, my dear, you cannot live in isolation

from the human race, you know.

-Mind if I try this now?

-I want you to.

[Organ begins]

♪

You go right ahead.

I'll be next door at the manse, if you need me.

♪

♪

We have an organist capable of stirring the soul.

♪

♪

[Suspenseful music plays]

[Organ resumes]

♪

♪

[Suspenseful music plays]

♪

[Foosteps approaching]

What do you see?

-Oh, nothing, nothing at all.

I've practiced all afternoon, and it's gotten me in a mood.

-You need some fresh air.

I've got to make a call out past the lake.

Would you like to come along for the ride?

-You know that old pavilion out there?

-Mm-hmm.

-Will we pass it?

-Go right by it.

Stop and look at it if you like.

-I would, with you along.

-Good.

♪

♪

♪

[Wind howls]

This used to be quite a place.

It's been deserted for a long time now.

-Will you take me in?

-Why, goodness no.

It isn't safe out there anymore.

That's why they put up this barrier.

-It'd be very easy to step around it.

-What attraction could there be for you out there?

-I'm not sure.

I'm a reasonable person. I don't know.

Maybe I want to satisfy myself that the place

is nothing more than it appears to be.

Would you take me out there?

-[Laughing] No.

The law has placed it off-limits.

Wouldn't be very seemly for a minister to break the law,

would it?

-No.

Maybe I can come back some other time.

-Shall we go along now?

♪

♪

[Wind howls]

♪

[Static crackles]

-See what I mean about that gorgeous

black-and-white cinematography,

from the moment Mary walks up out of the Kaw River.

And how can you be that good-looking

with that much mud on your body?

The movie is just one stunning image after another.

That room where she practices the organ

is the main assembly hall of the Reuter Organ Company,

which had been building pipe organs since 1880

and building them in that room since 1919.

And John Clifford, the screenwriter,

wanted that eerie overhead shot of Mary

among those giant organs.

And so he gave Mary the occupation of organist.

He and director Herk Harvey became more

and more attached to the idea

that organ music could be used to suggest Mary's inner turmoil,

and so composer Gene Moore eventually wrote

an all-organ score, which is the only one I've ever heard of.

And, of course,

the other iconic shot is the first time

Mary sees the abandoned amusement park.

It seems to rise up out of nowhere,

like a church and a castle and a fairy-tale city

transported from some other dimension.

It is, in fact, a place called Saltair

that billed itself as the Coney Island of the West,

and it advertised the healing waters

of the Great Salt Lake as "America's Dead Sea,"

where you can't sink no matter how hard you try.

And it also featured the world's biggest dance floor.

5,000 couples could dance to the music of the big bands --

Glenn Miller's orchestra was one of those --

and the world's tallest roller coaster.

But by the time Herk Harvey set eyes on it,

when he was driving back to Kansas from a job in California,

the edge of the Great Salt Lake had long since

receded into the distance,

and the nearest water was a mile and a half away.

And the Utah attraction that had stood there for seven decades

had fallen into ruins.

So, he told friends,

"It's just the coolest location I have ever seen in my life."

Piers with no water, a pleasure dome with no people,

an empty ballroom where 10,000 people once danced together,

and as soon as he got back to Lawrence,

he sought out his colleague John Clifford at Centron Films,

where they both worked, and he said, "Write me a feature."

And Clifford said, "About what?" And Harvey said, "I don't care.

I just want it to end up with specters and ghouls

rising up out of the lake and dancing in that ballroom."

So, both men had vacations coming up.

Clifford needed two weeks to write the script.

A business friend of Harvey needed one weekend

to raise $17,000, selling shares for $500 each.

And Harvey calculated he could make the film for $30,000.

So, if he and Clifford

and the cinematographer all deferred their salaries,

that $17,000 was just enough to get it done that summer.

Okay, so, Darcy. -Yes?

-What do the following people have in common?

Tobe Hooper, Robert Altman, Herk Harvey, George Romero?

-They made movies. [Laughter]

-Well, they made movies, correct.

But they made independent movies away from the Hollywood system

long before anybody else was doing that.

And the thing they all had in common

was they owned the equipment.

Tobe Hooper, director of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,"

was part owner of a company in Austin

that made educational films,

industrial films, and commercials.

George Romero, director of "Night of the Living Dead,"

was part owner of a company in Pittsburgh

that made educational films,

industrial films, and commercials.

Robert Altman,

whose first movie was "The Delinquents,"

a 1957 hot rod/wild youth picture,

was part owner of a company in Kansas City

that made educational films,

industrial films, and commercials.

Herk Harvey, director of "Carnival of Souls,"

was the top director at Centron Films,

a Lawrence, Kansas, company

that was the largest studio in America

for three types of films -- educational,

industrial, and commercial.

Now, the reason you didn't have hundreds of indie films in 1962,

the way you do today,

is that "A," nobody could afford the cameras

and other equipment, "B," there were no film schools,

"C," there was no way

to guarantee your film would be distributed,

even if you made it and "D," everything was shot on film,

which meant mistakes were expensive

and risk was very great.

But somebody who excelled at educational,

industrial, and commercial films would know how to shoot fast,

shoot cheap, shoot with available locations,

and edit for a demanding audience,

that demanding audience being his clients.

Herk Harvey, according to everybody who ever knew him,

was the best at that game.

He was a bundle of energy and enthusiasm and personal charm,

and no one could resist him.

And, like, "Carnival of Souls"

starts out with this dangerous street race with a car full

of guys and a car full of girls playing chicken

on the highways of Kansas. Well, at Centron Films,

they had made dozens of highway-safety films

for the schools of America, some of which were still playing

in high school classrooms 20 years later.

So a chase scene like that was just an easy afternoon's work.

"Carnival of Souls"

then continues with some trick photography in a moving car,

as a strange,

ghoulish stalker follows Mary everywhere she goes.

Well, at Centron Films,

this would be the kind of special effect

they'd use dozens of times for clients like Monsanto,

John Deere, ACDelco.

So, Harvey not only knew how to shoot, he knew how to edit.

"Carnival of Souls" also uses an actress who,

one week before she arrived in Kansas,

was studying with Lee Strasberg,

the founder of the Actors Studio,

in a class with Marilyn Monroe and Roy Scheider.

No one at Centron Films would be surprised by that.

They had made films with Walter Pidgeon,

Ricardo Montalban, Rowan and Martin, Ed Ames, Anita Bryant,

and they were, in fact,

the only one of those educational, industrial,

commercial operations to be nominated for an Academy Award.

They had a 1971 film about a severely disabled man

who triumphed over all his setbacks

and became an award-winning clockmaker.

Herk Harvey himself was an actor.

He had appeared in dozens of stage productions.

He had directed dozens of stage productions.

He had taught acting at the University of Kansas.

He was not a fan of Lee Strasberg,

and he let Candace Hilligoss know that.

And I actually think the tension between the two of them

is what perfected her great performance.

In other words,

Herk Harvey, already a legend in Kansas

for this immense energy and ability

to work anywhere in the world with extremely small crews,

was not some newbie.

You know, he brought to the production

a couple of dozen people he had worked with for years,

and he helped them to do their best work.

His instructions to Maurice Prather, his cinematographer,

were, "I want the look of Jean Cocteau,

but the feel of Ingmar Bergman." In other words,

he wanted a mundane narrative in a fantastic setting,

creating the clash

that had to be going on inside the mind of the main character.

In later years, Herk Harvey would go to film festivals,

and he would always be asked the question,

"Why did you just direct one film?"

And he always bristled at that question.

"I directed 400 films," he said.

He just never directed another theatrical feature

because of events beyond his control.

But we will talk about that later.

Right now, let's get back to the odyssey of Mary,

the church organist, as she tackles her new life.

Roll the film.

Did you notice, Darcy,

that I used a French name without complaining?

-I did.

I wrote that down, and I'm very proud of you.

-See, Cocteau? That's a reasonable French name.

Because I can say the word "cock."

-Yes. -And I can say the word "toe."

-But what is his first name?

-Darcy, why are you so mean? I was just celebrating.

-I just asked the name. I don't think I caught it.

-Jean, Jean. -Jean.

-All right, I'm going to try again.

-Jean, Jean, Jean. Jean.

You had to spoil it. -Sorry!

-I said it right the first time,

when I was not thinking about it.

But now I'm thinking about it. Jean, like Joan of Arc or...

-Uh, I think Joan is female, so it's probably not Joan.

-Then what is it, smarty pants?

-I mean, I don't presume to say a French word.

You do. Keep going.

-Jean. -Get it right.

-Jean, Jean.

-Okay, boss. You got it. We forgive you.

-They shouldn't let French people make movies.

-And all the film professors in America and Europe

will agree with you.

-Now you're being condescending.

-Aw, you're so sensitive.

-Jean! -Nailed it.

-Do you mean that?

-Oui.

[Laughter]

-Ah, I thought that it would be you.

-Good evening.

-Organ playing must take a long time.

You've been gone most the whole day.

-I went for a long drive in the country with my new boss,

an elderly minister.

-Oh! That must have been a kick in the head.

-[Laughs]

-I learned that from my other boarder, Mr. Linden.

Do you get your supper?

-Oh, I forgot.

-Well, This ain't no boardinghouse,

but I got some coffee and sandwich makings left.

I could bring you some up after a while.

-Good!

I'll be taking one of those baths you're so generous with.

-Well, take as many as you want.

I ain't one to make a fuss about a thing like that.

[Water running]

[Knock on door]

[Water running]

[Water stops]

[Water dripping]

-Come in, Mrs. Thomas!

Just -- just a minute.

[Gasps]

I thought you were Mrs. Thomas.

-Yeah, I, uh, wondered when you asked me in.

I'm John Linden.

I'm your neighbor right across the hall.

-Nice to meet you. Would you excuse me?

-Hey, I, uh, I'm just wondering,

if you're not doing -- -Just stand right there.

[Sensual music plays]

♪

♪

I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Mary Henry.

-Yeah, I know.

I, uh,

I heard you tell Mrs. Thomas you haven't ate anything yet, huh?

Well, I just thought, being neighborly and all,

I haven't eaten anything, either.

I just thought maybe I'd ask you out to dinner.

-Oh, that -- that's very thoughtful of you,

but I can't accept.

-I know, I know. We haven't met or anything yet.

But I just thought --

-I'm sorry. You'll have to excuse me.

-Look, there's a real nice restaurant,

you know, right down the street.

And I just thought, well, I'm the kind of guy

doesn't like to eat by himself.

-I've made arrangements to eat in my room tonight.

-If, uh, you change your mind, you just holler.

It looks kind of lonesome in here.

-Good night, Mr. Linden.

♪

♪

♪

[Gasps]

♪

[Suspenseful music plays]

[Gasps]

♪

[Footsteps approaching]

♪

[Footsteps continue]

[Gasps]

♪

[Door creaks, shuts]

-Miss Henry? It's Miss Thomas.

[Door rattles]

-Who's the man in the hall?

-The...

Oh, you must mean Mr. Linden.

He has the room across the hall. -No!

I mean the other one.

-There is no other!

Me and you and Mr. Linden.

Us three is all there is in this house.

-But -- but you must have passed him out there.

-You're needing this food.

Going without eating makes you jumpy sometimes.

Maybe you heard the boards pop or something.

These old houses creak worse than my knees.

-I didn't hear him, Mrs. Thomas. I saw him.

-Now, don't talk that way.

I don't sleep so good as it is.

It's these old houses. They...they're big enough

so that you could hide a man in every corner.

You just gotta not let your imagination run away,

Miss Henry. -Are you going out there?!

-Well, of course.

There's nobody there.

Now, you just go and eat that sandwich I made for you.

Don't drink the coffee if coffee keeps you awake.

-It won't.

Coffee never keeps me awake.

[Suspenseful music plays]

♪

[Rain falls]

[Thunder rumbles]

♪

♪

[Thunder rumbles]

♪

♪

[Static crackles]

-So, Mary's journey keeps getting redirected.

She's redirected in a hostile way by the supernatural ghoul

or whatever that guy is.

The spooky-man role is played by Herk Harvey himself, by the way.

And then there's that strange attraction pulling her

toward the decaying pleasure dome.

There she is, standing at her window, unable to sleep,

staring at it, knowing she has to go there,

but not knowing why she has to go there.

So, all these early scenes are what I call

the mansplaining section. The owner of the organ factory

tells her she needs to put her soul into her new job.

She says, "No thank you. It's just a job."

She's not concerned with her soul.

He asked her if she's planning to say goodbye

to her parents in Benton, which is near Topeka,

and just slightly out of the way when you're driving to Utah,

and she says, no, she doesn't have time.

She's driving straight through.

He invites her to come by when she comes back.

No, she says, she's never coming back.

People keep telling her she should have feelings

that she doesn't have.

The minister tells her she can't isolate herself from the world.

That's exactly what she wants to do.

Her lecherous neighbor tells her she should go out with him,

or else she'll be lonesome.

No, she won't.

There's a doctor coming up

who will talk to her about her serious emotional shock,

even though she has none.

So, she's not interested in family, friends,

what anybody thinks of her, emotions of any kind.

And the first time you watch this movie,

you'll be searching on her blank face

to find out what she's thinking,

and you won't be able to quite nail it, which is brilliant.

So, I mentioned before that

Candace Hilligoss is a method actress,

not just the method,

but the method as invented by Lee Strasberg,

who was her teacher.

For whatever reason, "Carnival of Souls"

has attracted a lot of academic attention,

and a frequent incorrect assertion in academic writing

about this movie is that it was achieved

with non-professional actors. This is not the case.

It was just cast with theater actors.

There was a rich tradition up through the '60s --

they called it the little-theatre movement --

of professional resident acting companies

in cities and towns all across America,

but especially in Kansas.

Kansas was where William Inge came from, for God's sake.

The creator of "Picnic" and "Bus Stop"

and "Splendor in the Grass"

And he was a graduate of the very speech-and-drama department

at the University of Kansas that was later run by Herk Harvey.

So, the little-theater movement was kind of like Off-Broadway --

professional productions,

but smaller theaters than Broadway with lower budgets.

And that's where these actors came from.

Well, actually, the landlady was a Broadway actress.

Frances Feist was in "Harvey" on Broadway.

She was from Kansas.

She started her career there,

but most of her career was in San Francisco,

which also had a Broadway-level stage-play community.

But Art Ellison, for example,

who played the minister, extremely well-known

in Kansas City.

His family had moved from Potsdam, New York,

to Kansas City when he was just 18 years old in 1917,

and he got a job at the electric company,

and he was still working at the electric company 68 years later.

But in the meantime,

he had worked for all the famous theater companies

in Kansas and Missouri, like Chanticleer Players,

the Blackfriars, the Resident Theater,

Missouri Repertory Theater.

He was cast in any movie that came through Missouri.

He was in Peter Bogdanovich's "Paper Moon."

He had done lots of radio drama, very familiar to Herk Harvey

because of dozens of roles in Centron Films.

That's not a non-professional actor,

but this was fairly typical of the whole cast.

They were not non-professionals.

They were professionals

who had worked in hundreds of productions,

some of them written

and directed by Herk Harvey and John Clifford working together.

So, when Harvey started casting the movie,

he auditioned several girls for the role of Mary,

but he didn't think any of them had the right look

or the right sensibility.

But one of his graduate students at Kansas University

was planning a trip to New York to visit his family.

So, Harvey said, "Look, I don't have the funds

for us to go up there and do a casting session,

but see if you can appeal to one of the agencies

and find an actress for me."

So, the grad student goes up to New York City,

finds a childhood friend who knows an acting agent.

They set up in his office, and they start auditioning girls.

And Candace Hilligoss walks in.

And so the grad student offers her the job --

two weeks' work in Kansas and Utah for $2,000 --

and she said later it seemed like $1 million to her

because both she and her husband

were struggling actors working low-paid jobs.

But she also had another offer the same week,

and that offer was in Connecticut,

which would mean she could stay home with her husband

and still do the job.

But that job required two nude scenes,

and at that time she didn't want to do the nudity.

The Connecticut movie was a more traditional

detective thriller,

so her agent was furious when she accepted the Kansas job.

But within a matter of days,

she was getting on a plane to Kansas City.

Now, shortly after takeoff,

the plane had to make an emergency landing.

That caused a 4-hour delay and a 12-hour travel day.

And when she stepped off the plane

at the Kansas City airport, her makeup had melted.

Her hair was a total mess. She was dressed in the style

of what Herk Harvey considered a beatnik.

And so, Harvey spent most of the one-hour drive to Lawrence,

Kansas, making small talk with her

but trying to figure out how he was going to tell her

that he had to send her home the next day.

So, the next morning he goes to her hotel

to have the talk with her,

and when she steps out of the elevator,

she has transformed herself into the Garbo-esque beauty

that he had been searching for.

In fact, Candace's regular job in New York

was that she was one of the Copa Girls

at the Copacabana nightclub.

At the time, they were considered the most beautiful,

beautiful girls in show business.

So she knew how to glam up. Herk Harvey apologized.

He didn't tell her what had happened,

but he apologized to the grad student who had found her

and casted her, and they started working together on the script.

Now, the grad student who cast her, by the way,

was Sidney Berger, who plays the relentless creeper in the movie,

the character of John Linden, the ultimate mansplainer,

because his message is basically,

"Once you have sex with me,

you'll realize how lonesome you are without me."

Anyway, the reason I've gone on about this so long

is that Candace Hilligoss is from a school of acting

that teaches how to react to everything around you.

In fact, it's a cardinal sin to do what's called "acting alone."

But because of the weird story that they're dealing with,

Herk Harvey wanted her to act alone.

She would say,

"What's my motivation to go from here to there?"

And Harvey would say, "No method, no method.

Your only motivation is to get across the street

without getting killed."

And he wanted her character to remain in isolation

from all the other characters,

and she kept fighting to connect with the world of the movie.

And it's precisely that tension that sells the part.

She wants to be with people,

but she doesn't want to be with people.

All right, let's get back to the story.

Roll it.

Sorry, Darcy.

I know that's way too much acting talk, theater talk.

Do you like Mary?

-I do, yeah.

-Woman trying to live alone in the world,

surrounded by judgment. -Yeah, that never happens.

-And she's like, "Just take me to the goldurn

creepy amusement park, and I'll be fine."

-Yeah, I am all about abandoned, creepy places.

-Only you would be Instagramming that pavilion.

-Oh, my God. Of course!

-You know,

there are still a few abandoned amusement parks out there.

We should do a road trip. -Can we really do a road trip?

I would love to.

-Of course, the first one that comes to my mind,

and probably the creepiest, is Neverland

on Michael Jackson's former estate

in Santa Ynez, California.

I saw pictures of that thing -- all overgrown with weeds.

Very creepy for a lot of reasons.

-I feel like maybe that's the last one we go to.

-Why?

-In the documentary that I'm creating in my head.

-Oh, wow. Well, you're way ahead of me.

-My sister worked at one called Dogpatch USA

that's in the Ozarks.

And it went out of business.

They tried to sell it on eBay, but no takers.

So, little Abner is just rotting away out there

in the woods. -That's so sad.

-But fascinating at the same time, right?

There's a Flintstones one in Arizona that closed.

There's one called Santa Claus, Arizona

that fell into ruins.

I guess they thought the North Pole in Arizona

was going to be a laugh riot.

You know, it didn't quite work.

We need one with ghouls, though.

I think the Wild West Town in New Jersey finally closed.

-Oh, no, it's still open.

-Wild West City!

I did a convention there with Kevin Van Hentenryck

from "Basket Case"

and the director of "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,"

and we signed autographs

while they were staging the shootout at the OK Corral.

So, that's an amusement park that was open,

but it felt closed.

-Maybe the performers were ghosts.

-Yeah. -[Laughs]

-Damn. -Maybe.

-I should have paid more attention.

-Is that the one where you texted me

the picture of the Headless Horseman?

-Yes, I did, Darcy. Good memory.

The Headless Horseman rides at Wild West City

right after the shootout at the OK Corral.

If Herk Harvey had seen Wild West City,

we'd have another movie.

♪

[Statc crackles]

[Alarm ringing]

[Ringing stops]

-Well, good morning!

I heard your alarm.

I knew you'd be up. Guess what I got?

-[Laughing] I can't imagine.

-Just what it takes to start the day off right!

l make it in my room.

You know, it saves me having to go out and get dressed up.

I guess I had to get dressed to come over here, anyway.

-Oh, it looks just like what I need.

-Well, then, two cups of coffee coming up.

Say, uh, I guess you took it wrong last night

about me coming to your door and all, huh?

-I'm not a very sociable person, ordinarily.

How can I resist inducement like this?

-What? Come on.

I don't know all those big words.

I'm just an ordinary guy who works in a warehouse.

That's all.

I make pretty good money, though.

Hey, look. I got a couple of shots left over from last night.

You want a little bit in yours?

-No, thanks.

It's not the recommended breakfast for a church organist.

-Oh, is that what you do?

You mean they pay somebody to play the organ in church?

-Some churches do.

-Hey, I hope you don't mind about this.

I just didn't know you were a church woman.

-To me, a church is just a place of business.

-Well, that's a funny way to look at it.

-Why? People seem shocked

because I took a job in a church,

and I regard it simply as a job.

I'm a professional organist, and I play for pay.

That's all.

-Thinking like that, don't that give you nightmares?

-Strange you should say that.

As a matter of fact,

not for that reason, mind you, but I...

I had the strangest feeling last night.

-Yeah. I had kind of a lost night myself.

-That's funny.

World is so different in the daylight.

But in the dark,

your fantasies get so out of hand.

But in the daylight, everything falls back into place again.

Let's have no more nights.

-Or let's make them more interesting, huh?

Say, uh, how'd you get to be a church organist?

-I studied it in college.

-I could have gone to college.

Yeah, I used to play pretty good football.

But they wanted me to take a lot of classes and things, you know?

-Well, they're that way.

-Well, I'm just as smart as the next guy.

Yeah, but I just didn't dig what they were teaching in school,

you know? And the thing I hated most was

principal products.

-Principal products? -Yeah, you know.

You know, like, uh,

the principal products of Brazil are...

oh, gee.

Coffee beans, snake oil, you know, like that?

Yeah.

When I was in school, I couldn't care less.

The only thing I cared about was girls.

-Didn't they offer a course in that?

-If they would have done that, I would have graduated.

[Pours alcohol]

-What's the matter? Can you still taste the coffee?

-Come on. What do you think? I'm an alcoholic?

Look, I just like to start the day off in a good mood.

That's all.

-You must be hilarious by noon.

-Look, I'm just a kind of a guy employers want.

You know, the happy worker. Come on, come on.

Didn't I make your morning happier?

-This morning, you're exactly what I needed.

-You're going to need me in the evening, too.

You just don't know it yet.

-I'll rinse off these cups.

-Oh, no, no, no.

Just spoils the flavor for tomorrow.

-Well, thank you for the coffee.

It was unsanitary but delicious.

-Well, uh,

should have put some of the germ killer inside.

Well, I, uh, hate to leave so early.

-Think you can get through the door?

-You know, you got the wrong impression of me.

-Well, I meant

because you had so many things to carry.

-Ah. Like I said, I hate to leave.

-Well, it's been a pleasure, Mr. Linden,

but I'm sure you have to get to work.

-Don't you?

-No, I have the whole day free for shopping.

♪

[Dinging]

Does the hem hang right in back?

-We might change the hemline a little.

The drape is just fine. Otherwise, it looks very nice.

-I'm sure it isn't very chic to take the second dress,

but I like it.

-We alter it a little hair to make it straight

all the way around.

There, do you want to go back to your dressing room?

[Dinging]

[Dinging]

[Dinging continues]

[Suspenseful music plays]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

-I like it fine.

I believe I'll have you deliver the dress, if you don't mind.

I did say I'd take it.

♪

♪

What's the matter with her?

♪

What's the matter with everyone?

♪

Why don't they answer me?

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Bird chirping]

[Chirping continues]

[Chirping continues]

[Gasps]

Ugh! -What is it?

-That man!

-I didn't mean any harm. I just stopped to get a drink.

-No!

No!

It was that man.

That man!

There was someone else there!

That strange man was there!

-Now look. Look. You've had a fright.

-Hysteria won't solve anything. Now control yourself.

Look. I'm Dr. Samuels.

My office is right across the street there.

You've had a shock.

If you would like my assistance, I'll be glad to offer it.

-Thank you. Could I come with you now?

-Certainly. I'll take her over to my office.

We'll see that she's all right.

[Birds chirping]

[Static crackles]

-So, when Mary is seen trying on that dress

in the department store, that's a real department store.

And that's the real employee

in the women's department of that store

because one way Herk Harvey was saving money is to say,

"Okay, this scene we're about to shoot,

we're going to grab it on the fly."

So, he would take the crew into a department store

and say to the saleslady,

"Would you help her try on the dress for $25?"

and press the money into her hand.

And then he would say,

"Can we have 30 minutes in the changing room?"

and another $25 for that deal.

And all six crew members would go into the changing room

to get that moment

when she goes into some kind of alternate dimension

and suddenly can't be seen or heard by anyone else.

Then he would say, "All right, she's going to walk up to you.

Act like she's not there. Here's ten bucks.

She's going to try to get into your cab.

Act like you don't see her. Drive away.

Here's ten bucks."

The bus driver got 20 bucks for almost hitting her.

The first time she didn't get close enough to the bus.

So, Harvey had to ask the guy to back up

and do it again with a bus full of passengers.

[Laughter]

And next time she got really close to the bus.

He almost grazed her.

And then he stopped and asked Harvey,

"Hey, you need another take?"

which is the kind of local cooperation

you could only get in Lawrence, Kansas.

Meanwhile, that's Stan Levitt as Dr. Samuels,

another veteran character actor from Kansas City.

He had a role in "In Cold Blood."

He's going to give us some more mansplaining.

You can see how this is sometimes studied

as a feminist movie.

I don't think the creators of it thought of it that way

because they didn't want to empower Mary.

They wanted her to be trapped by circumstance.

I think they were showing, though,

how much bad advice is likely to be given

to pretty girls in trouble. I read one academic article

that said the whole movie is about society blocking Mary

from lesbianism,

which would be her natural choice

if it weren't for all these men getting in the way.

I'm going to quote -- -I like that theory.

-Huh? Really? -Yeah.

-I'm going to quote what this professor said.

"John Linden" -- John Linden is the character hitting on her.

"John Linden is the warden of compulsory heterosexuality."

That's a heavy burden for Sidney Berger,

the enthusiastic grad student who supervised her audition.

He was probably thinking, "This girl could easily go lesbian

if I don't overwhelm her with my masculine chutzpah."

So, anyway,

Sidney Berger grew up poor on the Lower East Side of New York,

and the first six years of his life he spoke nothing

but Yiddish thanks to his Polish immigrant parents.

So, he knew all about masculine chutzpah.

At any rate, Herk Harvey kept passing out those $20 bills,

and he just had $17,000 to begin with.

So, after a while, they were shooting 18-hour days.

And that doesn't include the days

they were driving from Lawrence to Salt Lake

and from Salt Lake to Lawrence.

That's 1,100 miles, and you're crossing the Rockies.

But Herk wanted to shoot the movie in sequence.

He thought it was important for Candace's understanding

of the part, and so they had to return to the Kaw River

and put the car back in the river

at the very end of the shoot. And, by the way,

here's how brilliant Herk Harvey was as an indie filmmaker.

That bridge where the car went into the water?

That bridge connects Lecompton, Kansas, to Perry, Kansas,

two little towns just west of Lawrence.

And so the maintenance of it

is shared by Douglas County and Jefferson County.

So, Herk Harvey goes to Douglas County

and says, "Hey, is it okay if we take part of the bridge

off so we can stage a stunt?"

And the answer is, "Well, you need to ask Jefferson County."

So, he goes to Jefferson County

and says, "Douglas County is okay with it.

How about you?"

So, he made both counties believe

the other county had approved it.

And so they were allowed to run that car off the bridge,

but only if they paid for any repairs to the bridge.

A month later,

Harvey got the bill for patching the side railing on the bridge.

$12. [Laughter]

One decision that Harvey later regretted

was to not shoot breast nudity in the changing room

and in the bathtub scene. -Yep.

-The distributor asked for nude shots

long after Candace Hilligoss was back in New York,

and it affected how the movie got marketed.

Okay, let's get back to it. Roll the film.

And what do you think, Darcy?

Should they have freed the nipple in the bathtub scene

and the changing-room scene? -Oh, let me think.

In the bathtub scene definitely,

because she's struggling to cover up

before she lets the guy in.

-Okay, But not the changing-room scene?

-I mean, nice, but it's not necessary to the plot.

-All right.

I think those breasts were necessary to the plot, Darcy.

And it's a weaker work of art

when you have anemic garbanzo exposure.

-Okay. That's not what I said.

I said they weren't necessary to the plot,

but should they have put them in there, anyway?

Definitely. Always. -Okay.

-You had me worried there for a minute.

-Breasts improve everything.

-When did you become me? [Laughter]

-Well, let's not go that far. [Laughter continues]

[Static crackles]

-It was more than just not being able to hear anything

or make contact with anyone.

It was as though...

as though for a time I didn't exist...

as though I had no place in the world,

no part of the life around me.

-And then you saw this... this man?

-Yes.

-You'll excuse my back,

but I wanted to get some of that written down.

-I must have been talking for an hour.

-Anything else? Anything you haven't told me?

-That's all there is. That's the whole story.

He's been following me. That's all there is to it.

-It isn't that simple, though, is it?

-What do you mean?

-He could hardly have been in the park this afternoon,

or one of us men would have seen him.

And that night in the hallway,

you said yourself the landlady came up a minute later,

and she didn't see him, did she?

-What are you driving at?

-It's been less than a week since you were in a car

that crashed into the river.

How you got out of that, no one seems to know.

But that experience must have been a serious emotional shock.

-You think I imagined all of it, don't you?

You think I'm insane?

-I didn't say that. I don't mean that.

-I'm a competent person. If anything, I'm a realist.

I'm not given to imagining anything.

-Hogwash! All of us imagine things.

Have you ever heard two men talking behind your back

and imagined they were talking about you?

-[Sighs] I --

-Have you never imagined you saw someone you knew

and walked up to them and found they were a perfect stranger?

-I don't see what this has to do with it.

-The point is this.

Our imaginations play tricks on us.

They often misinterpret what we see and hear.

Do you agree?

-I suppose so.

-If that can happen in ordinary times,

go a step further.

Look what can happen in a high fever

or following a serious emotional shock.

-It doesn't seem possible that I could have imagined all of it.

-Does this man,

this figure, resemble anyone you've ever known?

An acquaintance or your father? -No!

-Do you have a boyfriend here or a back home?

-No, and I have no desire for one.

-Never? -No.

I'm surprised to find myself saying that.

But it's true.

I have no desire for the close company of other people.

-Have you always felt this way?

-I-I don't know.

-Don't you want to join in the things that other people do?

Share the experiences of other people?

-I don't seem capable of being very close to people.

I do feel that perhaps I am trying to reach out

for those other things.

Do you feel guilty wanting them?

-I don't understand you. -I'm not a psychiatrist,

and perhaps I'm being clumsy at all this,

but I am suggesting

that perhaps this figure represents a guilt feeling.

-Oh, that's ridiculous!

-Maybe. Frankly, I don't know.

-Well, I know one thing.

My imagination is playing tricks on me.

I'm going to put a stop to it.

-You're a very strong-willed person, aren't you?

-I survive, if that's what you mean.

-That old pavilion out by the lake,

somehow you associate it with all this, don't you?

-I could go out there. I could put an end to that, too.

I could go out there. -Now, don't be hasty.

-If it is all my imagination, I could put a stop to it.

-Maybe, but at least someone should be with you.

Now I can't possibly --

-As you say, doctor, I'm a person of strong will.

And the time to go out there is now.

And if I have to, I can go alone.

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Carnival music plays]

♪

♪

♪

[Clanging]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Rattling]

[Rustling]

[Suspenseful music plays]

♪

♪

[Rustling continues]

♪

♪

♪

♪

-Say, uh, I don't want to get turned down again.

I was thinking of asking you out to dinner.

-I stopped for a bite to eat on the way in.

Anyway, I have to practice at the church this evening.

-Look, uh...

how's about if I pick you up afterward?

We'll go someplace and dance or something?

-I'm sorry. I'm not much for dancing.

-Uh, hey, uh,

you mind if I ask you a question?

-I won't know until I hear it.

-What, are you afraid of men?

-No, I'm not afraid of men.

-Well... well, you seem sort of cold.

This morning when I brought you the coffee,

friendly.

-This morning I needed company.

-Well, maybe you'll need company tonight.

It's better than walking home alone.

-Yes, it is.

I should be finished around 9:00.

Will that be all right?

-That's okay by me!

Say, uh, I'll see you in church, huh?

[Organ plays]

♪

♪

♪

[Music stops]

[Music resumes]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Carnival music plays]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Playing discordantly]

♪

♪

♪

-Profane! Sacrilege!

What are you playing in this church?!

Have you no respect? Do you feel no reverence?

And I feel sorry for you and your lack of soul.

This organ, the music of this church,

these things have meaning and significance to us.

I assume they did to you.

But without this awareness,

I'm afraid you cannot be our organist.

In conscience, I must ask you to resign.

That does not mean that I am abandoning you.

Nor should you turn your back on the church.

There is help here, and I urge you to accept it.

[Static crackles]

-You know, there's a choice that Herk Harvey makes

when she goes to the church to practice the organ.

He wants to show that the visit to the amusement pavilion

has somehow changed her.

And so he has her play the organ barefoot.

Why? That has no particular logical meaning,

but that image of her bare feet

moving across the pedals of the pipe organ

at some subconscious level matters.

It's sexual,

but it's not sexual in the way that John Linden,

the persistent neighbor, wants her to be sexual.

It's freedom.

It's breaking away from this world

with all its rules and expectations.

And once again, she's told by Dr. Samuels and the minister

that she's "A," doesn't have normal desires

and "B," doesn't have a soul.

And she's starting to realize that herself.

Now, that sequence

where she wanders through the amusement park? That is amazing.

You have that overhead shot

that makes her seem tiny among the immensity of it.

And then you have all those small things

that could be explained by the wind or the rickety structure,

like the barrels clinking together

and the mattress coming down the giant slide.

What you can't explain is Herk Harvey as the ghoul,

staring straight up from beneath the surface of the water.

And then all those images are repeated

as she plays the devil music with her bare feet.

And the minister can't take it anymore,

and he puts a stop to it.

The one place in the whole movie that I think is a mistake is

when they use fast motion on those zombie dancers.

It seems jarring when it's placed with the images

before and after it.

And that choice might have been for the simple reason

that Harvey was running out of film stock

near the end of their time in Utah.

Harvey did have a permit to shoot in the pavilion,

by the way.

The abandoned business had become the property

of the Salt Lake City Chamber of Commerce,

and so Harvey asked if they would mind if his cast and crew

spent two days there.

And for people who had lived in Salt Lake all their lives,

that seemed like a strange request.

The amusement park did not seem fantastical

or picturesque to them.

It seemed like an eyesore junkyard,

a big, nasty smudge on the landscape.

So, they readily agreed to Harvey's use of the property,

and they asked if he would perhaps pay for the cleanup

that might be necessary.

And Harvey said, "Fine." And he asked how much.

And they said, "Would $50 be too much?"

Anyway, the name of the amusement park,

health spa, dance hall, resort, swimming pier,

community center was Saltair.

And it was built by the Mormons in 1893.

And the Mormon leadership had two reasons for creating it.

First, they needed a place

that Mormon families could vacation because it was a time

when healing-water resorts had popped

up all around the Great Salt Lake,

but most of them were low-class,

rowdy, full of hard-drinking people who liked to brawl

because this was, after all, the Wild West.

Utah was in the Wild West.

So, the Mormons wanted their own resort for people

who wanted to swim and picnic

but didn't necessarily want to get drunk and tussle.

Since Salt Lake was kind of a backwater,

the second goal of the Mormon leadership

was to show the nation that Salt Lake was not a backwater.

So, they wanted it to be big and splashy

and the Coney Island of the West.

And it was well-known that unwed couples could vacation there.

The Mormons had weird beliefs about many things,

but they never had any problem with sex.

And so they sank 2,000 pylons into the Great Salt Lake.

They advertised the healing properties of the waters

and the fact that the salt content was so high it was

impossible to sink.

They built a giant Moorish structure on the south shore

of the lake that contained bowling alleys, a Ferris wheel,

and the giant racer touted

as the tallest roller coaster in the world.

And they also built the Saltair Railway,

which would bring people the 16 miles

from Salt Lake City proper to the resort.

Saltair was instantly popular

and remained so right up until 1906,

when the church sold it to a group of businessmen,

but they retained title to the land.

Now, this would become the Mormon model for Las Vegas,

where most of the land in Las Vegas is Mormon-owned,

but the hotels are not Mormon-owned.

Unfortunately, most of the Great Salt Lake is salt, not water.

And so the coastline kept receding over the years,

and that moved the resort farther

and farther away from where swimming was possible.

And in 1925 there was a huge fire.

And then after it was rebuilt and started to come back,

a second fire devastated the business in 1931,

just as America was entering the Depression.

Now it had a reputation as the cursed resort,

but its optimistic owners completely rebuilt it

once again, and it started to prosper,

mainly because of its rides.

The biggest ride was the giant racer.

But in 1957, a windstorm, 75-mile-an-hour winds

knocked down the giant racer, and without its main attraction,

Saltair had to close its doors in 1958.

So, by the time Herk Harvey drove past it in 1961,

it was a crumbling ruin connected to the highway

by a rutted dirt road that had "keep out" signs posted.

And, of course, Herk Harvey decided not to keep out.

His first impression of it, he told John Clifford,

was that it had been transported

into a different time and dimension.

And so we hear Mary saying to the doctor,

"it was as though I ceased to exist.

I had no place in the world."

Or, according to John Clifford's script,

she had only one place in the world, the pavilion itself,

and one person waiting for her there, Herk Harvey as the ghoul.

Apparently he needed a dance partner.

So, back to the movie.

You know, anytime you try to build something in any

of those southwestern states -- Arizona, Utah,

that part of California that's in the Mojave Desert --

nature is whispering to you, "Go away. Do not do this.

Do not live here. Humans are not welcome here."

Because every time

they put up a new strip shopping center in Phoenix,

I'm thinking, "Okay,

how long before the desert takes that thing back?

How long before the cactus starts growing up

through the floor of the sporting-goods store,

and you have rattlesnakes in the 7-Eleven?"

And then you'll see some dude in Grand Junction

or somewhere trying to grow Kentucky bluegrass

in his front yard.

He's standing out there with a hose,

depleting the Colorado River, mumbling to himself,

"Fuck the Hoover Dam. I don't care. I want this bluegrass."

So, meanwhile,

you get skin cancer on your way to Whataburger.

You know, you can literally see buildings crumbling

into dust out there.

And, Darcy, you are such a health nut.

And yet you spend all this time in Las Vegas and Phoenix.

-Yes, but I don't go out in the daytime very much.

-You only go there at night?

-If I can help it, yes.

-Because the sun will turn your skin

into a crispy-bacon potato chip?

-Absolutely. Yes.

-You hate the sun so much,

I would expect you to live in northern Alaska

in the winter months

and Antarctica in the summer months.

-I really wish I could do that, honestly.

-Because you are a fanatic about skincare.

-I just truly hate the sun. It's awful.

-And the sun hated Saltair.

And on a day in 1970,

God sent one last blast of heat and burned Saltair to a crisp.

-Burned the ruins?

-I think there may be still a few ruins there,

but mostly it's gone.

I think it was actually arson that finished it off.

Them dang teenagers probably finished it off.

-Meddling kids.

-So, you probably can't use Saltair in the documentary.

-All right, we'll see about that.

-You'd have to walk. If you hate the sun...

You would have to walk a mile and a half

across the salt flat in the daytime

to get any footage there.

-You know what? Worth it.

I'll take it for the team this time.

-Wow. I am proud of you, Darcy.

-Thank you. -You're a filmmaker.

[Laughter]

[Insects chirping]

-Well, hi, there.

I've been waiting an awful long time for you.

My car's just over there. I know just the right place.

[Upbeat pop music plays]

♪

♪

[Music stops]

What's the matter? Don't you drink, either?

-Not really.

-Not really?

How else is there if you don't drink, really?

Answer me that, hmm? Now, me?

I not only drink really. I really drink.

What's the matter?

Don't you like the music, either?

-I like it fine. -You don't like it.

You don't like to dance, and you don't like to drink.

And you don't like for a man to hold you close.

That's it, isn't it?

-I didn't say that.

-You haven't said anything all evening.

[Sighs]

I'm gonna go play that song again, you like it so much.

-Hey, Johnny. Who's the doll?

-Nobody you know, "Chicken."

-Oh, come on now. You've been holding out on me.

That's not the kind of pig you usually drag around.

-Now you quit licking your chops.

She's out of your class.

-You want to bet?

-Lay off, huh?

I got something on the stove there, man.

-Well, listen. I'll help you put it over.

I don't want her to think I even know creeps like you.

-Good luck!

-Meet someone you know?

-Yeah. He's a college fella.

He, uh, told me about this girl

that's been wanting to meet me.

♪

Wanted me to meet her. -What'd you tell him?

-I said, "How could I?" You're my date, you know?

Said you, uh, didn't seem to enjoy my company much.

-Oh, that's not true.

I really appreciate your taking me out this evening.

I'd have had a miserable night if you hadn't.

-Huh? Forget it.

Come on. Here. Join the party. Drink up.

I paid good money for that stuff.

It ain't poison.

-I'm sorry if I annoy you.

-You know, I don't get you. First, you stand me off.

That's okay. That's class.

Figure you got something. You're just holding back.

Now everything I say is okay. You're a mouse.

-Yesterday, I didn't care.

Tonight I want to be with you.

-Me or just with anybody?

-With you.

♪

-Why don't you thaw out, hmm?

But maybe you want to be alone, huh?

I'll leave you alone if that's what you want.

-No, I don't. I --

I like being with you. Really, I do.

I don't want to be alone tonight.

I want to be near you.

♪

-Do you mean that?

-Yes.

♪

-Why don't you and me get out of here, hmm?

You know, my room's only a couple of feet from yours.

Ain't likely to get very far from me, are you?

♪

♪

[Laughs] Oh, gee! -Shh!

We'll wake Mrs. Thomas.

-Aah, that old girl is in the back at the house.

She won't hear nothing. Oh!

Honey...

you don't want to go in there all by yourself, do you?

It's dark and it's lonely in there.

You don't have to be alone tonight.

Just let me come in a while.

Let me stay with you, huh?

Look. You don't want to be alone, do you?

-No.

I'm sorry. -Look, look, honey.

Honey, you ask me in. You must like me a little, huh?

-[Screams]

[Hyperventilating]

-Hey, what's the matter with you?

What's going on around here?

What's the matter with you?!

-That man is after me.

You gotta stop him! He's after me again.

-I'm getting out of here. -No, you don't have to go!

-Not me, sister. That's just what I need!

Get mixed up with some girl who's off her rocker!

-I don't wanna be left alone!

[Door opens, slams]

[Crying]

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Static crackles]

-You know,

I would like to defend the performance of Sidney Berger

as John Linden,

the guy who spends the whole movie hitting on Mary.

For some reason, the critics hate that performance.

Roger Ebert called him nothing more than a nerd in lust,

and it kind of hurt his feelings.

He was a drama teacher at the University of Kansas,

one of the graduate teaching assistants

in the theater department who worked a lot for Herk Harvey.

And as I pointed out before,

Harvey had trusted him to do the casting of the lead

in New York City.

He's the one who picked Candace Hilligoss

to play Mary after three solid days of auditions,

but most of Sidney Berger's subsequent career

would be in Houston, where he became a legend.

He was hired to beef up the drama department

at the University of Houston in 1969,

and when he got there, they had 3 teachers and 30 students.

When he retired 38 years later, in 2007,

he had developed it into a major drama school with 300 students

and 15 faculty, including Edward Albee,

Lanford Wilson, Ntozake Shange, Mark Medoff.

Do you guys know these names?

These are world-class playwrights checking in

at the University of Houston to work with Sidney Berger,

who everyone referred to as "Doc."

He was also the longtime artistic director

of the Houston Shakespeare Festival.

He got the composer of "Fiddler on the Roof"

and the composer of "Barnum"

to compose stuff for the Houston Children's Theater Festival.

He specialized in Shakespearean staging and textual research,

to the point that he was on the board

of every international Shakespeare organization,

including the one that rebuilt the Globe Theatre in London,

and he personally trained

hundreds of actors and directors --

Dennis Quaid, Randy Quaid, lots of Broadway people.

Okay, so that was all later, of course.

But was this visionary actor's actor, director's director,

was he that bad in 1961?

So bad that he was described as an amateur in the reviews?

I don't get it, because, first of all,

he does come across in this movie

as a small-town Midwestern hustler,

even though he spoke Yiddish the first six years of his life.

He was the son of Polish immigrants.

He grew up poor on the Lower East Side of New York City,

so his real life was about as far away from that world

as is possible to be.

Secondly, he escalates

and de-escalates that attempted seduction of Mary

according to her mood and what she'll put up with.

Third, he's a believable drunk

and believably in denial about it.

Most actors would overplay that.

Fourth, he manages to put across the personality

of a college dropout full of false bravado,

a self-important ladies' man who's anything but a ladies' man

who's actually just a leering, skirt-chasing loser.

So, we get a whole person out of this performance,

and he only has one real exposition scene, the one

where he talks about his football scholarship.

So, I would say he had studied that character well

and delivered him with passion and commitment.

And there's also been a tendency to minimize the writing

of John Clifford,

even though I think his sensibility

and his experience

may be what makes the simple script work so well.

John Clifford was one of those guys

who came back from World War II changed and damaged.

He was born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1922.

He always had aspirations to be a writer.

He moved to Chicago during the golden age of radio

and became a successful joke writer for radio stars.

But he sought bigger things,

and so he moved to Hollywood to intensively study screenwriting,

and to support himself, he sold songs.

He was a good songwriter,

and three of his songs were recorded by Nina Simone.

But World War II just broke his spirit.

He was drafted early.

He was assigned to an Army hospital as a medic,

and it was one of those mobile hospitals, like in "MASH."

So, he moved with the Army

through the bloodiest battles of the Pacific,

and he saw things

that caused what would be considered

post-traumatic stress syndrome today.

But they had no name for it in the '40s,

and they did not believe

that the general term "shell-shocked" could be applied

to hospital personnel because they were not in actual combat.

So, after five years

and two months of dealing with the casualties

of the worst battles, including New Guinea and Manila,

he went back to Hollywood.

But he was unable to work.

He would have moments

where he would just bust out crying for no reason.

He had other times when he felt totally dissociated

from the world, and doctors tried to help him,

but they didn't understand how he could have these symptoms

because he was not in combat.

But they were actually the same symptoms suffered by medics

in the First World War.

And some of those medics became the founders of surrealism,

both in literature and in art.

Eventually, he left Hollywood for financial reasons,

and he moved to his wife's hometown of Emporia, Kansas,

and in the course of looking for work there,

he discovered Herk Harvey. and Herk Harvey discovered him,

and they worked together for decades at Centron.

Herk Harvey had his own World War II stories.

He had served on a Navy ship

that had classified missions in the Pacific.

The entire war history of Herk Harvey's ship is top secret,

and his top-secret security clearance is one reason

that Centron was able to land Pentagon contracts.

Centron built a military studio separate

from their civilian studio

so that it can be approved as a SCIF.

A SCIF is a sensitive, compartmented

Information facility.

A SCIF has to be cleared for discussion

of classified material.

They regularly search it for listening devices,

and they soundproof it.

And I don't know what kind of military films

they were making at Centron, but Herk Harvey did.

My only point in dwelling on this

is what is Mary suffering from,

if not PTSD, dissociation from the world around you?

Doctors misdiagnosed it,

just as Dr. Samuels misdiagnoses it in the movie,

as a lack of sensory awareness brought on by trauma,

but it's actually the opposite.

It's all the senses functioning with painful efficiency

to the point where you can't stand living.

So, he was the perfect screenwriter

for "Carnival of Souls."

Okay, before we get to the conclusion of the movie,

I just want to say I hope I've exploded a few

of the myths surrounding "Carnival of Souls."

It was not made by amateurs.

It was not a fluke.

The mood, the atmosphere,

the undercurrents of surrealism were all baked into the script,

the direction, the acting.

And the main reason it survives today

is that all that came through,

even when experienced through crappy

late-night television versions that played throughout the '60s,

'70s, and '80s,

long after the movie had failed at the box office

and been forgotten by everyone in the film world.

It was brought back to life

because of all those late-night screenings

built up a fan base so loyal

that people would actually phone their local TV station

to find out when was the next time the movie would be on.

It survived because it was made well by pros

who happened to work in Lawrence, Kansas.

Okay. Back to the flick.

-That was really good.

-They say you can have trauma by living in a situation

where you're always expecting trauma,

even if the trauma never happens.

Like being in a jail cell

and told you're going to be executed, you know?

You're not executed, but you think you will be.

-I could see that for sure.

-So, they say this thing happens in war,

where it was first noticed in trench warfare in World War I.

You're in this hole in the ground

where you can't ever know what's happening around you.

You can't ever know when you're going to be attacked.

And then when you are attacked, there's nobody to shoot back at.

So, if you're in the war, and death

is occurring all around you,

but there's nothing you can do to defend yourself,

and there's nothing you can do to attack the enemy,

you just go crazy.

-I can see that, too.

-So, isn't that all warfare now?

Isn't that everywhere?

-Maybe. Yeah.

-Aren't all these guys going crazy?

I mean, you have drones and you have rockets

that are launched from 800 miles away,

and you have satellites and you have heat-seeking missiles,

and you don't know when or where or how

any of that stuff is coming in.

And if you're firing that stuff,

you don't know when or where or how or if they hit the target.

I mean, that's war now.

I was a guest on one of those ships

that had been in the Gulf War,

a ship that fires the Tomahawk missiles,

and they told me they were so far away from the battlefield

that they didn't even need to wear battle gear.

They could have just sat out on the deck

in beach sandals and Hawaiian shirts.

And it took a couple of hours for their missiles

to make their way to Baghdad and hit a target.

And I said,

"So how do you know whether you hit the target or not?"

And they said, "We turn on CNN." [Laughter]

I'm not kidding.

-That's kind of awesome, though.

-Well, yeah, it's kind of awesome on our side.

But the dude on the other end of that is going,

"What supernatural event just occurred here?" you know?

-Is that why you like this movie so much?

-I like the movie because it is surreal.

And you can watch it over and over

and you start to realize

that every single moment pays off the ending of the story.

In fact,

the version we're watching is the 74-minute version

that was shown in drive-ins and on TV.

There's an 83-minute version that was shown at the premiere,

but even this version pays off the ending.

-So, why are we showing the short one then?

-Oh, that's a good question. I'm not sure.

-Okay. -But I don't think it's

because they took out scenes of John Linden

finally getting lucky and having sex with Mary in her room.

-Probably not.

-Although I could see writing it in a way

that that's exactly what she would want to do right now.

-Really? -Yeah.

Because when you panic and you're in danger

and you think you might die, you have sex.

-You know this, do you? -Yeah.

-Mm. And how do you know this?

-Get me drunk, and I'll tell you.

[Laughter]

-Oh, you are on, sir.

[Laughter continues]

♪

♪

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-Decided to leave, did you? Where are you going?

I can't refund none of your week's rent

when you go off like that.

[Engine starts]

[Car squeaking]

[Suspenseful music plays]

♪

[Squeaking continues]

♪

♪

[Brakes squeal]

-Sounds like the transmission. Can you pull it up on the rack?

[Squeaking continues]

-Okay, fine.

-Will it take long? -Well, I have to check it first.

Would you like to get out?

-May I just sit here?

-Sure. Suit yourself.

[Lift motor humming]

[Pump dings]

[Ding]

[Creaking]

[Suspenseful music plays]

[Footsteps approaching]

♪

♪

[Hissing]

♪

[Footsteps approaching]

♪

♪

-Aah!

♪

[Indistinct conversations]

[Conversations stop]

♪

-When is the next eastbound bus?

When does the next bus leave? I must get on.

♪

♪

I want to get out of here!

I want to get away from here!

♪

♪

-[Ominously] Eastbound bus now loading, gate nine.

♪

♪

♪

♪

[All laughing menacingly]

♪

[Laughter continues]

♪

♪

[Footsteps approaching]

♪

Don't close it -- wait! Wait, wait!

Let me in! You gotta let me in!

I gotta get on that train. I got to get away from here.

Please? Ple-e-ase?!

♪

You hear me? You can hear me.

♪

♪

[Thinking] Why can't I hear anything?

♪

Will you help me? I need your help.

♪

J-just a moment, please.

♪

♪

Why can't anybody hear me?!

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Bird chirping]

[Chirping]

[Chirping continues]

-I came to you, Doctor, because you're my, my last hope.

I-if you don't help me out, I'll have to go back there.

He's...

he's trying to take me back somewhere.

Doctor, you've got to tell me what to do.

Aaahhhh!

[Engine starts]

♪

♪

♪

[Wind howls]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[Howling continues]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

Aaahhhh!

♪

[Man laughs]

[All laughing menacingly]

♪

♪

♪

♪

♪

[All laughing]

♪

Aaaahhhhh!

[Wind howls]

-The car's still over there.

And then the footprints are leading up to here.

[Howling continues]

♪

And then nothing.

♪

[Howling continues]

♪

♪

-Okay, Walt! Take her in. It's right down there.

Wind it on up!

♪

[Boat motor humming]

♪

♪

♪

[Static crackles]

♪

-Okay, that's enough organ music for right now.

[Music stops]

Did you notice that Candace Hilligoss is trembling

when they pull the car out of the water?

She's trying to be dead, but she can't quite do it.

She was in and out of that river for eight hours

on the final day of shooting,

and they didn't get back to Kansas till early October,

so it was cold enough to freeze the balls off a pool table.

The first time she stepped into the water, she screamed.

It was just unbearable.

She told Herk Harvey she could not do it.

He needed to use a double or a dummy

or something, and he said no,

if she didn't get into the water, he had no movie.

It had to be her. So she tried a second time.

She lasted about five seconds before she screamed

for them to get her out of there.

And this went on for so long

that finally Herk Harvey physically threw her

into the river. -Oh, my God!

-And that was witnessed by a police officer.

And as soon as Harvey threw his lead actress

into the river, the cop left.

And Harvey thinks he had to either leave

or arrest Harvey for what he had witnessed.

In other words,

Harvey committed felony assault to get his film finished.

It took Candace a while to forgive him.

However, he was correct. He had to have that final shot.

if he hadn't been such a stickler about shooting the film

in sequence,

they would have gotten that shot on the same day

they shot the drag race,

but he wanted the last shot of the production

to be the last shot of the movie.

Two days earlier,

he had shot the scene that he had dreamed of ever since

driving past the Saltair Pavilion.

He used 40 students from the Mormon School of Modern Dance

to create that ghoulish ballroom scene.

But as beautiful as that was,

it was kind of spoiled by the destruction of the reel

that preceded it.

He shot several minutes of the ghouls rising up out of the lake

and supernaturally flitting among the pylons,

but the lab overexposed that film, and it became unusable.

Candace Hilligoss had no idea

whether the movie was any good or not.

She was 26 years old.

She was considered a minor rising starlet.

She had left her home in Huron, South Dakota,

eight years earlier with $500 and three pairs of tap shoes,

and she had got a stern warning from her father

that there would be no more money from the family

for the pursuit of an acting career.

So, she spent three years at the University of Iowa.

She got accepted

into the prestigious American Theatre wing,

which made it possible for her to do the big jump to New York.

She did summer stock in Pennsylvania.

She worked at the Cape Cod Playhouse.

She made her living by dancing at the Copacabana.

She toured with Nina Foch,

who she met while working on the early television hit

"Naked City."

She got accepted as a student by Lee Strasberg,

but she used that $2,000 from "Carnival of Souls"

to help her husband's career.

He quit his waiter job and right away got a role on Broadway.

But after all that, when her agent saw "Carnival of Souls,"

he dropped her as a client.

He said the movie embarrassed him.

She would make one more movie,

"The Curse of the Living Corpse,"

starring her friend Roy Scheider,

who recommended her for the role.

And that movie got horrible reviews

and ended up as the second feature

on a drive-in double bill with "Horror of Party Beach."

And when she turned 30, she retired from acting to be a mom.

"Carnival of Souls" premiered at the Granada Theater in Lawrence,

Kansas, on September 26th, 1962,

and even though the theater was full of friends and family

of the cast and crew,

it failed to strike a chord with the audience.

They had a sort of "I don't get it" response.

What did you think, Darcy,

the first time you saw "Carnival of Souls"?

-I was really interested in it because it's from the '60s,

so it's like a really different look than we normally see.

But I thought it was fine.

-Fine? Just fine? -Yeah.

I mean, it's really beautiful and atmospheric,

and I love it for that, but it's just not really scary.

-Well, no, I mean, it's more of a sense of dread.

You don't think Herk Harvey as the ghoul

who pops up everywhere is scary?

-Okay, he got me once or twice for sure.

-What would you do if a director told you to jump

into that ice-cold water?

-Oh, I would jump into the ice-cold water.

I've had to, like,

I've had to do worse than that on cheaper movies than this.

-Really? -Yeah.

-Well, Herk Harvey lost control of his movie

at a pretty early stage.

The distributor cut nine minutes out of the film

in order to fit it into a double feature

with "The Devil's Messenger," an anthology film

that had Lon Chaney Jr. as the top-billed actor,

and Herk Harvey left for South America for two months.

He had to do seven industrial films down there for Centron,

and when he returned, he saw the film had been playing drive-ins,

mostly in the Deep South,

and so he asked the distributor for his share of the money,

and they sent him a check that bounced,

and he knew he was in trouble.

The distributor soon went out of business.

The owners fled to Europe,

and before they left, they gave a bunch of prints

to a broker

who illegally sold them into television syndication.

So, all of Harvey's investors lost all their money.

The deferred salaries were never paid,

and the only investor who did not mind was Pauline Pappas,

an elementary school teacher who lost her thousand dollars

but married Herk Harvey,

and she was with him 27 years until his death in 1996.

The movie has often been compared

to the Ambrose Bierce short story "An Occurrence

at Owl Creek Bridge." I'm a huge Ambrose Bierce fan.

Think he was a genius,

but I think the resemblance has been overstated.

I will not go into it right now, but, you know,

one story is about a hallucination at the point

of death, and the other story is a battle against death,

a kind of fierce struggle through purgatory.

And "Carnival of Souls"

is a much more emotionally complex story.

The movie has also been compared to the 1960

"Twilight Zone" episode "The Hitchhiker" because of the way

the ghoul stalker keeps appearing and reappearing.

But I think it's a stretch to say

that John Clifford took anything from Rod Serling, either.

On the other hand,

I do see a lot that George Romero took

from "Carnival of Souls,"

including that primitive white-zombie greasepaint

that Herk Harvey uses on himself.

And correct me if I'm wrong,

but isn't David Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" kind of

a reimagining of "Carnival of Souls"?

There was a 1998 remake

that you do not need to waste your time watching.

It has nothing to do with the original.

It has Wes Craven's name on it,

but he apparently didn't do anything

except consult with the filmmakers about

how to capitalize on the original title.

Centron Films continued to be the largest operation

in the country when it came to "mental-hygiene films"

with titles like "The Bully," which was about school violence,

"Innocent Party," which was about venereal disease.

-Oh, my God! -"What About Prejudice?"

which was about racial tolerance.

They also produce most of the recruiting films

for the Pentagon,

as well as military-training films, commercials,

corporate-branding films, nature films, how-to films.

They were kind of the YouTube of their day.

The Centron Film sound stage was the largest in the Midwest

and one of the largest stages between New York

and Los Angeles.

And after winning hundreds of awards using

about 3,000 actors from Lawrence,

using every major building in Lawrence --

it became one of those companies that everybody

in Lawrence has worked for at least once in their life --

Centron Films finally shut down in the early '90s

after 44 years in business,

because the era of 16-millimeter film was over.

In fact, the era of film itself would soon be over,

and the huge Centron Films production complex became

the University of Kansas Film School.

And the largest sound stage in the Midwest

became the Herk Harvey Sound Stage.

When you enter today, you pass a sign

that says, "You are entering the Herk Harvey Sound Stage.

May all who enter here find his spirit of excellence."

You know, what a life.

-Oh, my God.

Well, it must have been great to be there during those years,

but hey, want to do a mailbag?

-Somehow, I knew you did. -Let's do a mailbag.

This is actually kind of a cheat.

It's an Instagram DM.

It's from Matthew Tomaszewski of Warren, Michigan.

-I think that is Tomaszewski. -Yes!

-"Thanks for playing 'The Autopsy of Jane Doe.'

Definitely a movie I would not have chosen on my own."

Well, that's why we chose them, Matthew.

"When we watch 'The Last Drive-In,"

we're having fun chatting the whole time,

drinking beers, having a blast.

With this movie, we were dead silent.

It was so captivating, it left us silent.

Thanks, Matthew, from the Redrunn Skate Shop."

Matthew Tomaszewski, Redrunn Skate Shop, Warren, Michigan.

Thanks for sending this, Matthew.

I think what you're telling me

is that the TV is on at the skate shop on Friday nights,

and I appreciate that.

I love it when people watch the show in groups,

but I'm a little shocked

that so many people love this movie so much.

I get comments about this all the time,

and usually we get complaints

if we show anything remotely experimental.

The whole movie takes place basically in one room.

Stars a dead person.

But, yeah, people were fascinated by it,

and they also sent kudos to the writers.

We were breaking all kinds of rules that night

because normally we don't interview writers, either.

But Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing were fascinating.

I know that all three of our guests that night

are friends of yours.

The other guest was producer Eric Garcia.

-Yeah. They were all really excited to be here,

and they actually wanted to stay longer than they did.

-I know. Well,

I would be very much in favor of having writers on the show

more often, and I guess that's it for me

for this edition of "The Last Drive-In."

You can still get tickets for Joe Bob's Jamboree

at the West Wind Las Vegas Drive-In October 4th and 5th.

But right now, speaking for myself

and for Darcy the Mail Girl,

I want to remind you that sometimes life is harder

than walking through a balloon shop with a porcupine purse.

But keep believing in yourself,

and you'll end up happier than a possum in the corn crib

with the dog tied up.

-Wow, that was a complicated one.

-Yeah, you can't write that on a potholder, can you?

-You cannot.

-And the drive-in will never die.

Why is an elephant big, gray, and wrinkled?

-I don't know.

-Because if he was small, white and round,

he'd be an aspirin.

[Laughter]

-What? -Okay.

-Right?

-You were not the first person to hate that joke.

I love that joke, but you hate it.

-I'm just confused by it. -Woman goes to the doctor.

The doctor tells her she has six months to live.

The woman says, "Is there anything I can do?"

The doctor says, "Yes, there is.

You could marry a software engineer."

And the woman says, "How could that help my illness?"

And doctor says, "It won't help your illness.

But the six months will seem like an eternity."

[Laughter]

-Okay.

-All right. I'm gonna do one more, okay?

-Go for it. -I have one more chance?

-[Laughs] Yes.

-Moses, Jesus, and a bearded old man...

Got it so far? -Yep, sure.

-Moses, Jesus, and a bearded old man are playing golf.

Moses hits a long drive.

It lands on the fairway,

but it rolls directly toward the pond.

Moses raises his club, parts the water.

The ball rolls through the pond safely to the other side.

Jesus also hits a long drive toward the same pond,

but just as it's about to land in the water,

it hovers above the surface of the water.

Jesus walks out onto the pond, chips it onto the green.

The bearded man steps up to the tee.

He hits a terrible slice.

It hits a fence, bounces out onto the highway,

caroms off a diesel truck,

rockets up back onto the fairway

but is headed directly for that pond,

but it lands on a lily pad instead

and it gets snatched into the mouth of a frog.

An eagle swoops down, grabs the frog, flies away, and then,

as an eagle passes over the green,

the frog drops the ball

and it lands in the cup for a hole in one.

Moses turns to Jesus and says, "I hate playing with your dad."

[Laughter]

-Wow!

[Laughter continues] Wow!

♪

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-Made in Georgia.