Bob Clark, R.I.P.

If ever a career defined the word "journeyman," it was that of director Bob Clark, who died yesterday with his son Ariel Hanath-Clark in an auto crash. Clark was 67.

I'm not using "journeyman" as a putdown. I never met Clark, but I've heard him speak on a number of DVD commentaries and he always struck me as a guy who loved movies, loved moviemaking, and practiced his craft with the same enthusiasm wherever his career took him. Which is not to say he always achieved inspired results. But after coming into the movie business via the grindhouse (his first released picture, She-Man, is available on a Something Weird DVD), he made one of the more creditable latter-day Sherlock Holmes pictures (Murder by Decree); redefined, for better or worse, the teen sex comedy (I find Porky's mostly unwatchable, but Crow T. Robot would want me to mention that it did help launch the career of Kim Cattrall); and, if you believe his obits,claimed Frank Capra's throne as the creator of the most popular and memorable Christmas movie ever.

Which is kind of funny, given that when it first opened in 1983 the main thing A Christmas Story's grosses proved was that you couldn't count on Jean Shepard's fan base to bring in the big box office bucks. Story has since taken on a life of its own, separate from Shepard, Clark, my former friend Scotty Schwartz (who played Flick) and so many others involved in the film who haven't profited from its revival. Ah well, that's showbiz.

For my money, Clark's one certifiable masterpiece is the deeply creepy 1974 Deathdream, in which The Monkey's Paw meets Vietnam. It was made into an excellent DVD by Blue Underground a few years back. It is not for the meek of heart. But then again, neither is Rhinestone, the Stallone/Dolly Parton big-studio "musical" that Clark made in the wake of Story.

Comments

[Brian Koppelman]

Glenn,
Last two posts have used the word 'masterpiece.' One in assent, the other not. Define, please. How broadly are you using it? When do you confer it, when do you hold it back?
Koppelman

[G. Kenny]

As I'm BLOGGING here, fer farck's sake, I use it pretty broadly...
But seriously—the cheaply made and somewhat morally disreputable "Deathdream" is a much different kind of film than the quirky-but-Hollywood-standard-production-value-filled "Movie Movie." I call "Deathdream" a masterpiece because it's genuinely disturbing and unnerving, and it has a certain quality (a quality entirely absent from anything else Clark made) by which it does a whole lot more than just succeed on its own terms. It really sticks to the ribs, in spite of all the sections where you can see through it.

"Movie Movie" is hardly a masterpiece because...well, it's a fun trifle that transcends precisely nothing. Now, "Singing in the Rain," which Donen directed with Gene Kelly, is another story.

But finally, what you encountered here was me overusing a term which, when I'm not quite as sleepy as I was when I put up either post, I try pretty hard to use ultrascrupulously.

[WP]

But does Deathdream have a LAMP SHAPED LIKE A LEG????? No? Without that, how could it possibly be a masterpiece?!

[Aaron Aradillas]

What, no love for Black Christmas?

You were friends with Scott Schwartz? Did the friendship end before the porn or after The Toy?

[G. Kenny]

Actually, I have love for both "Black Christmas" and "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things." But I needed to grind out this memorial in internet time! As for me and Scott, of whom I still think fondly...well, Aaron, as this blog's resident Premiere scholar, you might want to check an article from '98 entitled "Neither Adult Nor Entertainment," which recently appeared in the essay collection "Consider the Lobster" under the title "Big Red Son" the better to find out where my relationship with the former child star went sour...

[Aaron Aradillas]

Shit, I got buy another book. What month in '98?

[Josh]

Yeah, I was going to mention Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. Does this mean we will never see the imdb-listed remake?

Didn't Alan Ormsby write both that and Deathdream? Kind of impressive, in a way.

Anyway, we've cleared up "masterpiece." Now you'll have to define "farck."

[Griff]

If you want to bring up LOOSE CANNONS or anything with the phrase "Baby Geniuses" as lesser films by Bob Clark, that's fine -- they're definitely his creations. But RHINESTONE is sort of a special case. Don Zimmerman, the editor who cut ROCKY III and STAYING ALIVE for Stallone, was the original director of RHINESTONE, but was fired sometime after the beginning of shooting. Clark was quickly hired and reportedly began filming within a few days time. It is said that the director extracted a firm commitment from Fox for TURK 182! before taking on the reins of RHINESTONE. It was, I believe, a job of work for the director -- a risible one, of course -- as opposed to "a film by Bob Clark."

I would add that in 1974, DEATHDREAM played all over the Midwest as DEAD OF NIGHT -- DEATHDREAM is definitely a better title for the picture.