MAD FOXES (1982)
Directed by Paul Grau
ZiMAG VHS
THE FILM
Check it out! It's nutty.
Look, my Mom loved it. Even Gramma had good things to say about it. And, the thing about Gramma is..."Gramma don't like no trash." Yet, she loved Mad Foxes. Here, let me show you what I mean.
A Review by Dan's Gramma:
"It's not really my kind of movie. I told Danny that. Give me The Sound of Music and some Lawrence Welk and I'm happy. But, when he asked me to watch this Mad Foxes, I gave it a try because I used to watch Crazy Like A Fox years ago and I love Jack Warden. Well, Jack isn't in this. In fact, I didn't recognize any of the actors but, golly, I still had fun. We sat on the davenport and I poured Danny a cup of Ovaltine and we watched. Oh, the nudity! I haven't seen so much random nudity in my whole life and that includes all the times I've seen myself nude. And, the violence! There were karate men and Nazi biker gentlemen fighting and...well, it got rowdy. I love the Cultures Of Europe as much as the next lady but all this 'downstairs mutilation' got to be a bit much. If you know what I mean -- "
Dan here. I just wanted to point out that the Ovaltine we had was very nice. I added a little splash of brandy (don't tell Gammy).
"Oh, the whores! They're everywhere. And, that lead fella...well, he may have been suave but, I don't know, he doesn't do it for me the same way, say, a Warden does. But [re: the whores] I guess the ladies are like that in Europe. In my day, it was scandalous to share a toboggan with a young man. But, here we have young women running around nude with nude young men. She's nude. He's flailing in the breeze. Oh the balls! Let me just say that, when I was young, we used to refer to 'What Men Have Within Their Trousers' as Walnut & Ween, after the vaudeville team. Do you remember them? Danny's nodding his head."
"Hello! I'm Walnut!"
"Hiya, I'm Ween!"
"We're gonna give you a great show!
Like you've never seen!"
"Well, that doesn't have much to do with Mad Foxes...except I would like to point out that 'Walnut & Ween' make numerous appearances throughout."
Dan here again. You're going to have to look up Walnut & Ween on Wikipedia. I think they used to perform with Stoopnagle & Budd. [They didn't - Ed.] I have asked Gramma to talk more about the movie.
"Well, there's this 'European Lothario' and he and his young lady are attacked by these biker gentleman. And, the whole movie is about them attacking him and him attacking them and then everyone blows up. I could have done without the one biker sitting on the toilet for about a minute. I had enough of that raising five kids. But if you've got to go, as they say, you've got to go."
Dan again.
I think what Gammy does here is sum up beautifully the "Wonderful" world of this insane exploitation picture. The rowdiness, the violence, the nudity, the erotic, the hairy, the smelly, the inane, the insane, the left-brain of it all.
Three cheers for Gammy Burlap! Hip Hip...
AUDIO AND VIDEO
Gramma rented this on VHS. I think it's a copy of the European DVD. It's letterboxed and looks fairly good. Nothing world-beating but good. There's music by Krokus and the Krokus rocks. (No, they don't play "Smelly Nelly". Sorry, Fat Rick.) In fact, during the second Krokus tune, Gramma got so rowdy that she flung a cup of Horlicks in my face and punched me hard in the gut. We have fun.
EXTRAS
Commentary from UCLA Film Historian Lefty Shafmire III and a Scene-Specific Storyboard featuring discussion from Gina Sassoon AKA Dick Renyas.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I think this might be a little tough to find but Who Cares? Find it and watch it and have a great evening. Watch it with a relative and Bonding May Occur (BMO).
— Dan Budnik, 09.23.10 |
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