I stumbled across this on YouTube the other day. I no longer recall what I was actually looking for, but by the time I was fifteen seconds into viewing this clip, I knew that I couldn‘t let it go without commentary. This thing is crammed with questionable acting, bizarre dialogue, big hair, drug-inspired sets and, of course, the jaw-dropping restroom catfight that comes at the end. And all of this happens in just over five minutes. Simply amazing.
The scenes in the video are from a movie, “Eye of the Cat”, unleashed on the public in 1969 (which explains half of the weirdness right away). The film, which I haven’t seen, is supposedly some type of mystery/horror concoction that actually got some decent reviews. (I don’t see how.) But you really don’t need to know anything about the movie. It’s completely unimportant.
As your personal tour guide, however, I would like to point out a few items of interest, in an effort to further enhance what is already guaranteed to be a riveting viewing experience. Besides, you’re going to be so entranced with the highly-intelligent wordplay that you may not notice all the striking visuals. I’ll help you with that.
We start off with an odd, quick shot of Michael Sarrazin wearing a pair of strange shoes (and little else) while lounging on a questionable bed. Then some rude woman turns on a light so that we can see her giant hairdo better. She’s dressed entirely in white, so you know right away that she’s probably evil.
The over-dressed woman wants naked Michael to go somewhere with her. This invitation does not sit well with another woman in the room, who is sporting nothing more than a sheet, and she begins to whine about Mike going anywhere. The second woman’s voice is very girly and high and you can’t really hear what she’s saying because the sound of her voice makes your ears bleed.
Even though it’s very clear that Michael intends to leave, because he’s finally putting some pants on while the woman with all the hair taps her foot, Squeaky Girl shows her increasing dissatisfaction with the travel plans and she becomes quite petulant. She suddenly rips off her sheet and tries to attack the Lady in White. Squeaky obviously has some anger-management issues, so Mikey intervenes and throws Squeaky and her irritating voice on the bed.
Cut to an extremely Bohemian bar where there are hundreds of lit candles threatening to engulf the place in flames. The director gets all arty with the shot, panning through the crowd of hippies, many of who have been given mystifying lines of dialogue to spew out as the camera rolls by. (Example: “Isn’t it about time you stopped talking about dying and started DOING something about it?” What the hell?) You instantly don’t want to associate with any of these people because they are too arty and pretentious. And stoned.
Speaking of, Michael and Hair Girl and are lying on a futon in the middle of all this mess. He decides that it would be really groovy to light a joint. (I’m thinking that’s not really necessary with the clouds of recreational smoke billowing through the room.) When he lights up, it apparently causes Hair Girl to lose interest in him, and she wanders off, flouncing away in this startling dress that is apparently composed of fluffy dryer lint. (Seriously, stop the clip at 1:47. What else could that be?)
It takes her forever to wander around the bar, but she eventually has a brief conversation with a drugged-out person attempting to play a sitar or some such. More goofy dialogue. “Is there a head on this ship?” (Um, yeah, there a lots of heads in the room. You can throw a rock in any direction and hit a stoner. They don’t move very fast.) Turns out she just wants to know where the bathroom is. Then why didn’t she just ask THAT? I guess I’m not hip with the counter-culture lingo.
Cut back over to Michael, who’s still enjoying his cannabis. (Notice the dead girl in the chair behind him. How sad.) Next thing you know, in waltzes Squeaky Girl who has managed to finally get dressed and even locate a matching purse. They converse a bit, and she offers to take him back even though he shoved her on the bed and hasn’t returned her phone calls.
When Squeaky learns that Mike is still intent on hanging around with the Lady in White, and that he actually had the gall to bring her into this very same fine establishment, she goes ballistic. She yaps out a few choice words, then runs off in a strange way that somehow makes her short dress flip up and show off her questionable panties.
Squeaky staggers into what has got to be the ugliest and trashiest but very spacious ladies room on the planet. I think they were aiming for a modified French Country motif, but they missed it by miles. While Sobbing Squeaky asks if anybody has a tissue (honey, there’s plenty on the floor, grab one), the camera pulls back to show the Lady in White applying makeup at the mirror. Uh oh. “There’s some in the stalls,” she sniffs.
Squeaky turns, spies Lady looking all snooty, and then… well, you’ll have to watch it. Just press play.
(Fair warning: There’s a slight bit of nudity toward the beginning, but that’s the LEAST offensive part about this whole thing. Trust me.)
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