A Movie Classic

Since I told you a story of how I made Mr M laugh, I think tonight I'll tell you a quick story of his making me laugh. Not that it was his most shining example of wit, but it was lasting, because I still think of it.

I was telling you I wanted to blog about some of the movies I'd seen in the past few months, and tonight I'll tell you about one of those movies. Was it the best one? Nope. Was it the worst? Yep. In fact, I almost didn't include it in my list out of pure embarrassment, but afterwards I figured, hell, I suffered through this thing, I'm using it for my movie list.

The movie in question is that monumental classic "Robinson Crusoe On Mars."

We caught this classic late one night on AMC. Very late. Excruciatingly late. So late, in fact, that Mr M pleaded for me to please let him give up on it and go to bed. He cried, he begged. I refused. Something was drawing me to this movie, and I didn't want to watch it alone.

The story of "Robinson Crusoe on Mars," which will hereafter be known as RCoM, was the story we know. Robinson (an astronaut) gets stranded on a desert island (Mars), and tries to survive as best he can, finding his own Friday (a renegade alien who looks and acts remarkably like some sort of weird-ass Indian) along the way. But it's so much more. Or less. Or something.

I mean, let's get real here. It was a cheapass thrown-together low-budget crapfest. But in a kind of a fun way.

So here's the deal. RC, his spaceman partner (played by Adam West), and a monkey (got me there, I always thought they sent the monkeys up instead of the men) go on a mission to Mars. Things go awry, as they do out there in space, and there's a crash that kills Adam West (yes, I was excited too) and leaves RC and his monkey to figure out the big bad world of Mars. Friday comes into things a lot later, and we won't get to him, because I'm a very nice person and therefore not going to sit here and tell you the whole story of this movie.

The middle of the movie is post-crash, and is all about RC and his simian buddy trying to survive. RC's rationing air, and water, and food, leaving a little out for the monkey. Who's not eating or drinking. RC takes this as some sort of "emotional distress" on our monkey friend's part, and it takes him forever to discover the reason for this is because the monkey's just not fuckin' hungry! Because he's discovered a limitless stash of food and water on his own.

The water looks just like plain old water, and I guess it takes a desperate man and monkey to just jump right in, swimming and bathing and drinking and everything elsing in this water without even boiling it first. But the food is in one form and one form only. And yes, you can take this how you like. It's in the form of a pod. Of sorts.

It actually looks like what we called as kids "cat tails." You know, the plants with a stem and a little oblong brown pod at the end. Anyway, RC sees monkey eating pod and follows suit. "Hey, these things are pretty good!" And now they're in high cotton, eatin', drinkin', swimmin', and livin' it up.

Then one night RC gets the brilliant idea to make pod soup.

I'll tell you the movie's punch line first. When the pods are cooked instead of eaten raw, they're poisonous. And also a hallucinogen. So RC gets mighty ill and has some visions not enjoyed since Timothy Leary laid on the couch and listened to a Grateful Dead album.

But here's the real punch line. We were sitting watching this movie, me and Mr M. And the scene where RC eats the pod soup and starts to be sick... Well, I've seen bad acting and I've seen bad overacting. Most of it involving Sting or William Shatner. But the guy who plays RC (a fellow named Paul Mantee, sorry Paul, I'm sure you're a nice guy) puts on a performance that beats just about everything I've ever seen.

After his bowl of soup, RC immediately starts to feel, well, ill. He winces. He grasps the table. He tries to move, but can't. Finally, he pulls himself up off his chair (well, actually, I think it's a rock), he's hanging onto the table, he's trying to stand up, dragging his feet into place, wincing, contorting. And he gets almost in an upright position, then doubles over in pain again, still hanging onto the table.

Cue Mr M.

At that point, Mr M decided to provide us with a sound effect. A large "pbbbbbbbbbbt."

I lost it.

I lost it because I was wryly, silently thinking the same thing. "Apparently the only thing this man had to go on as an actor as far as being poisoned is concerned was that time he had searing gas pain."

And I also lost it because I couldn't help but think that back in the mid 60s (the movie was '64, I think), when that cheapass movie played in every town across America for the week or so it was allotted, up in every balcony of every theater of every town, there had to have been at least one wiseass kid who did the same thing, making a raspberry that resonated throughout the whole movie house.

And I also lost it because, well, it was fuckin' funny. Stennie said it best when she said "farts are funny." I guess that goes even when the fart is manufactured with the lips.