Earthquake (1974)

          Pure junk that nonetheless provides abundant guilty pleasure, Earthquakewas a pinnacle of sorts for the disaster-movie genre. Executive producer Jennings Lang was recruited by Universal Pictures to copy the formula that Poseidon Adventure mastermind Irwin Allen had perfected at rival studio 20th-Century Fox, so Lang commissioned a thrill-a-minute script (co-written by Mario Puzo) and hired a large ensemble of mid-level actors. The resulting movie, as produced and directed by fading studio-era helmer Mark Robson, is a cheesefest replete with bad acting, horrible clothes, and ridiculous storylines. However, since those are exactly the kitschy qualities that fans of the disaster genre dig, Earthquake became a major hit, earning nearly $80 million despite costing only $7 million. Therefore, Earthquakerepresents the disaster genre in full bloom.

          While there’s not much point in discussing the actual plot—there’s a giant earthquake in L.A., in case you haven’t guessed—listing a few of the characters should give the flavor of the piece. Leading man Charlton Heston plays Stewart Graff, a businessman whose rich father-in-law, Sam Royce (Lorne Greene), offers him a company presidency in exchange for staying married to shrewish Remy Royce-Graff (Ava Gardner); meanwhile, Stewart is screwing around with a younger woman, Denise Marshall (Geneviève Bujold). Bullish police offer Lou Slade (George Kennedy, of course) spends most of the movie watching out for Rosa (Victoria Principal), a busty young woman who wears her hair in some sort of Latina Afro, because she’s mixed up with a motorcycle-riding daredevil (Richard Roundtree) and a psychotic stalker (Marjoe Gortner). Oh, and Walter Matthau plays a bizarre cameo as a drunk dressed in head-to-toe polyester, complete with a flaming-red pimp hat.

          Virtually every melodramatic cliché from ’70s cinema is represented somewhere in Earthquake, which treats seismic activity as a cosmic metaphor for the uncertainty of life. And by “metaphor,” I really mean “narrative contrivance,” because the script for Earthquake exists far below the level of literary aspiration; this movie’s idea of storytelling is stirring up trite conflict before adding tremors that kill people in exciting ways. However, some of the big-budget effects scenes are enjoyable in a tacky sort of way, and the histrionic nature of Heston’s and Kennedy’s acting keeps their scenes jacked up to an appropriately goofy level of intensity. Plus, during its most outrageous scenes—picture Roundtree performing Evel Knievel-style motorcycle stunts as Principal cheers him while wearing an undersized T-shirt that displays his logo across her ample bosom—Earthquakeembraces its low nature by providing shameless distraction.

Earthquake: FUNKY

Starcrash (1978)

How bad is Starcrash? To paraphrase the Bard, let us count the ways. First, there’s the discombobulated, idiotic storyline—an interstellar smuggler gets sent to the monster-filled home world of an evil wizard in order to rescue the son of an outer-space emperor, aided only by a band of outlaws and robots. Yep, it’s all the main signifiers from the previous year’s blockbuster Star Wars, thrown into a blender and transmogrified into nonsense. (Proving the makers of Starcrash have no shame, the flick even features low-rent light sabers.) Then there’s the garish production design, which blends Buck Rogers-style camp (the heroine spends most of the movie in an outer-space bikini) with sub-Star Warsmechanization, resulting in an aesthetic jumble. Next come the godawful special effects, ranging from chintzy stop-motion monsters to weak spaceship shots. And finally, there’s the abysmal acting, which is exacerbated by sloppy dubbing: B-movie stalwarts including Marjoe Gortner, David Hasselhoff, Caroline Munro, and Joe Spinell hiss and preen through ridiculous performances. Throw all of these elements together, and you’ve got junk so dreadful that even producer Roger Corman, whose company released the picture in the U.S., should have been embarrassed. Made in Italy, and variously titled in different international territories as Scontri stellari oltre la terza dimensione and The Adventures of Stella Star, the picture is nominally a showcase for leading lady Munro, a raven-haired beauty who first caught notice in Hammer horror flicks and a kitschy Sinbad picture. She fills out her barely-there costume nicely, but her bug-eyed acting diminishes her appeal considerably. Even more painful than enduring Munro’s work, however, is watching Christopher Plummer’s stupid cameo as the emperor—could he possibly have been paid enough for this humiliation? And for that matter, how the hell did the producers get A-list music composer John Barry, already a three-time Academy Award winner at this point, to do the score? Mysteries, to be sure, but not worth investigating.

Starcrash: SQUARE

Marjoe (1972)

          An Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature, Marjoeoffers a mesmerizing glimpse behind the curtain of big-time American evangelism, and the backstory of the movie is fascinating. In the late ’40s, a child named Marjoe Gortner became known as “the world’s youngest evangelist,” receiving ordination and performing weddings when he was still four years old. (Marjoe features incredible archival footage of the towheaded young Gortner performing feverish sermons.) The son of a Californian preacher, Gortner ended up becoming his family’s primary breadwinner until his teenage years. Convinced his parents had siphoned the money he snookered from gullible audiences at revival meetings, Gortner set off on his own until his mid-20s, when he returned to the revival circuit expressly for the purpose of making cash.

          This film documents Gortner’s final revival tour, because by the time he was asked to participate in the movie, Gortner had decided to quit hustling rubes and become an actor. Thus, Marjoe is equal parts confessional, exposé, and reportage. About half the screen time comprises exciting scenes of Gortner working rural audiences with his frenetic stage presence, and the rest features Gortner in hotel rooms and other locations revealing the methodology of those who prey upon the Pentecostal circuit. The level of cynicism in these private scenes is staggering. “If I hadn’t gotten into evangelism heavily, I probably would’ve been a rock singer, because I enjoy working a microphone,” Gortner remarks, explaining that he copies moves from Mick Jagger. ”I enjoy getting it off onstage, but I really wish I was getting it off as a rock star or an actor, which is something I have to get into.” At one point, the filmmakers show Gortner and his business associates giggling while they count donations backstage after a rally, literally giddy from the high of ripping off susceptible patrons.

          In one of the film’s most striking devices, Gortner describes gimmicks that work onstage, like laying on hands and speaking in tongues, and the picture cuts to Gortner demonstrating those maneuvers; it’s bracing to see big-time religion reduced to showbiz slickness. Somehow, the movie elicits a certain amount of sympathy for Gortner, who was pushed into evangelism before he was old enough to choose his own way, even though his motivation for reentering the Pentecostal world as a grown-up was morally bankrupt. “I am a hype,” he says, “but I don’t feel that I’m a bad hype.” True to his word, Gortner quit the ministry after the tour featured in Marjoe, embarking on an unsuccessful singing career before transitioning to acting with appearances in the disaster movie Earthquake (1974) and assorted B-movies and telefilms.

Marjoe: RIGHT ON