User Comments:
The Cinema Art of David L. Hewitt, 16 October 2002
Author:
madsagittarian from Toronto, Canada
Okay, there's one thing about the 80's that I miss. At 4AM, one used to
be
able to see Grade Z gems like this on TV. Now it's nothing but those
rotten
Infomercials. You could say that Ted Turner killed film culture, but I
would argue that it was Anthony Robbins. In fact, during that golden
hour
of the day/night, one could see many films unleashed by the maverick
no-budget director David L. Hewitt. THE MIGHTY GORGA, WIZARD OF MARS and
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME used to tickle many a bad-film lover (or
torture an unsuspecting insomniac) who tuned in.
This film, which I saw under the title RETURN FROM THE PAST, is a
gloriously
inept, amazingly miserable cash-in on the then-popular trend of horror
anthology movies (in which a few short, separate tales of horrific irony
are
strung together by an onscreen narrator). All the hallmarks of Hewitt's
unmistakable authorship are in abundance here.
First, there is the hiring of once-great, "anything for a buck" actors;
in
this case, John Carradine (naturally) and Lon Chaney Jr, in small roles
which nonetheless gave the theater owners a name to put in the marquee.
Secondly, Hewitt once again fills the cast with his oddball stock company
of
dreary, nasal-sounding "actors" (who is this Roger Gentry, anyway?). As
well, the director's sterling use of half-finished sets, or plain black
backgrounds (when there were none at all!) is such a feat that would even
make Ed Wood blush if he worked under such insane conditions. Add to
this,
the surprisingly ambitious writing (for bargain-basement cinema, anyway)
which paradoxes the miserable attempts at mise en scene. For such a
bottom-of-the-barrel project as a Dave Hewitt film, one wonders why he
bothered with such an adventurous screenplay (like WIZARD OF MARS or
JOURNEY
TO THE CENTER OF TIME, especially), when the insultingly bad production
values would work against the ambition of the writing anyway. Thus,
therein
lies the strange dichotomy of Hewitt's work as a director. With a
thrift-store budget, he really tried to make something out of nothing.
Who
can blame him if he didn't succeed?
Add some haphazard dubbing, some great juvenile cartoon blood dripping on
the screen, and you have a truly beguiling piece of work. Anyone who
insists on making tired, threadbare projects like this has to get a medal
for bravery alone.
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