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I would like to begin this week with a moment of silence for Emi Ito of The Peanuts, whose performances in the Mothra films I spoke of fondly only two columns ago. It was in revisiting Ms. Ito’s legacy, via YouTube, that I struck upon the subject of this week’s Bombast: a few of my favorite musical performances in non-musical films. I sure hope you folks like it; it goes a little something like this:
Bunny Lake is Missing (1965)
The Zombies, “Remember You,” “Just Out of Reach,” “Nothing’s Changed”
During this period, director Otto Preminger was rather preoccupied with the triumphant medium of television. 1968’s Skidoo begins with a channel-surfing gag, and is appropriately peopled with a channel-surfing cast (Frankie Avalon, George Raft, Frank Gorshin, Groucho Marx, Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney). Chris Fujiwara’s 2009 study of Preminger’s films, The World and its Double, posits the movie as a sort of self-destructing satire of televised culture—a reading that I didn’t find altogether convincing, although if true it makes the resulting film even more unlikable, if possible, than it already is.
At any rate, Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing of three years earlier included a curious “commentary” on the ubiquitous nature of modern media, a moment in which the narrative proper is temporarily set aside so that we can watch The Zombies “perform” on a pub TV set. In its self-conscious modularity, this scene points to the extreme difficulty of integrating band performances into narrative. I’ve always been fond of the elegantly inelegant solutions reached on The Young Ones…
Out of the Blue (1980)
Pointed Sticks, “Out of Luck” b/w “Somebody’s Mom”
Here’s a quite successful example of the abovementioned integration. Though Pointed Sticks were apparently the first Canadian band signed to London’s legendary Stiff Records, my sole contact with them is through this scene from Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue. Linda Manz’s adolescent punkette Cebe, on her own in the big city, wanders into a show—apparently at the Viking Hall on Hastings Street–where she watches the Sticks play “Out of Luck,” and is even slotted in behind the traps on “Somebody’s Mom.” I love Manz in this moment—she’s like Bresson’s Mouchette flirting on the bumper cars, ecstatic at getting a taste of the world outside of her miserable, chartered, provincial upbringing, before the taste is slapped right out of her mouth.
Something Wild (1986)
The Feelies, “Fame” (David Bowie cover)
Oh, cool, The Feelies played Maxwell’s yet again last night, and yet again I failed to attend!
Empire Records (1995)
Coyote Shivers, “Sugar High”
I don’t know if this is the measure of a classic, but no one who has ever heard this song has forgetten it. Here the performance is so integrated as to act as the capstone of the movie; this does not, however, prevent both song and film from being awful.
The Lost Boys (1987)
Tim Cappello, “I Still Believe” (The Call cover)
There is so much gay subtext in The Lost Boys that we are probably better off just calling it gay text. If I ever cease to laugh uproariously at Jason Patric and Corey Haim’s quick exchange of glances and rapt fascination with the undulating, greased, Tom of Finland torso of Tina Turner saxman Cappello, I am most likely no longer among the living. The introduction of Jami Gertz’s Star, immediately afterwards, feels like an afterthought, a hasty cover-up, like Waugh’s “It is time to speak of Julia…” in Brideshead Revisited.
Taking Off (1971)
Ike & Tina Turner, “Goodbye Baby”
Speaking of Tina Turner… More people should see this, Milos Forman’s first American film, not least for a wonderful drunk act by Buck Henry, who’s hysterical when trying to crack an egg on the edge of a bar. It also contains this barn-burner of a performance by Ike & Tina, ripping it up for a crowd of suburban conventioneers.
Better Off Dead (1985)
Elizabeth Daily, “One Way Love”
Stone-cold banger.
Wayne’s World (1992)
Alice Cooper, “Feed My Frankenstein”
Alice Cooper is such a legit dude that he could separately record singles called “Teenage Frankenstein” and “Feed My Frankenstein” within six years of one another and no one would dare to question it. A spry 64, Cooper’s “Ballad of Dwight Fry” was the sole peak of Tim Burton’s recent Addams Family reboot, Dark Shadows, though perhaps Cooper’s finest film role came in John Carpenter’s 1987 Prince of Darkness, in which he uses a bicycle frame device, apparently imported from his stage act, to impale Thom Bray.
The Niklashausen Journey (1970)
Amon Düül II, “Untitled Jam”
R.W. Fassbinder’s “Best Pop Musicians” list: Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen, The Platters, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music, The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Comedian Harmonists.
Catalina Caper (1967)
Little Richard, “Scuba Party”
When this part comes up on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, Crow cracks: “Little Richard. The only genuine talent in this movie.”
Vampire’s Kiss (1989)
ESG, “Moody”
I moved to New York about ten years ago because I thought that it would be like a combination of this and the Biohazard “Punishment” video. Huge, huge disappointment.
Rio Bravo (1959)
Dean Martin, Rick Nelson, and Walter Brennan, “My Rifle, My Pony, and Me”
Zen, American-style.
For the record, I didn’t “forget” The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones in Clueless. Stay tuned next week for the television edition, in which I will discuss the Dickies episode of “CPO Sharkey” in 17,000 words.
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Nick Pinkerton is a regular contributor to The Village Voice film section, Sight & Sound magazine, and sundry other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.