Go West for Mod Movie Monday - Rio Bravo, 1959

Ask anyone who digs old movies and old westerns about this flick, and the response will be something around the same as if you ask them if they are hip to Miles or Bird…oh, yeahhhhh!

Rio Bravo, 1959

Dean Martin

is a good old-fashioned cowboy movie with a little twist: The cast. Here you have John Wayne leading Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson,Ward Bond and Walter Brennan (plus Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez for comic relief). Wow. Add to that some really good writing, some intense scenes where predicting the outcome is almost impossible, and plenty of evil bad guys and you’ve got the makings of a classic flick. Even the side romance between the 51-year-old Wayne and 26-year-old Dickinson are believable and fun.

The story is a somewhat typical cowboy job: Wayne, the Sheriff, is trying to keep his dusty frontier town together while fighting against a cattle baron who, as all cattle barons in old westerns tend to be, is an evil, murdering SOB. His brother murders a cowpoke in a saloon in cold blood and is locked up by the Sheriff. Cattle baron brother sends bad guys to get him out. Wayne is helped only by the recovering drunk Dude (Martin), an aging deputy with a bad leg (Brennan), a very young gunslinger (Nelson), a somewhat crazy chick (Dickinson) and a Mexican hotel owner with a funny way of talking. Oh, and Wayne totes a Winchester Saddle Ring Carbine everywhere he goes. Kookie.

By the way, you get a free song too, a duet with Dino and Ricky Nelson. Whoever thought they’d sing together?

Food & Booze: Whisky. Just Whisky. Or Beer. This is what cowboys drink in the movies. No one really eats anything so why not try an easy chili recipe. There’s this thing out there called Wick Fowler’s “2-Alarm Chili Kit”. It won the 1967 Texas Chili Cook-off and has everything in it you need to make a really good chili except beef, beans and stewed tomatoes. Just follow the directions and you can’t miss. I first used this stuff back in 1987 to make Chili for a Halloween party while watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, a really bad movie that had the cannibalistic characters making - you guessed it - chili, with human meat. Funny, huh? Here’s the trailer for Rio Bravo…

-Tiki Chris P. reporting from the Last Chance Saloon, in an oasis somewhere in the middle of cowboy-days Florida

Mod Movie Monday Time! This Week, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, 1970

Here’s a truly Mod movie for Mod Movie Monday…What do you get when you mix late ’60s Hollywood with stacked chicks, Russ Meyer and a young Roger Ebert? Just what you’d expect…a classless, confusing, wild and oh-so-fun-to-watch flick with a cast of hot chicks and a good old fashioned X rating.

Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls

from 1974 is NOT a sequel to The Valley of the Dolls. In fact, other than some shared costumes and Manson-style murders, there’s nothing to do with Valley of the Dolls. But hey, everyone was juiced up on acid in 1970 so who cares, right? Diggit.

I’m not even going to try to explain the plot of this movie beyond four hot, mod chicks in a rock band decide to head out to LA to make it big, and everything goes nuts from there. The girls get naked a lot. There’s ’60s-style lipstick lesbian sex. Kool cars. Drugs. Music by the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Crazy swingin’ Hollywood parties. Styles, decor and music that will send you far out, baby. It’s the scene. It’s also funny (intentionally) and has some wacky, out-there scenes (especially the ending) that writer Roger Ebert (yeah, the thumbs guy) and director Russ Meyer cooked up on-set. (Funny note: Russ Meyer didn’t know the film was getting an X rating, which is pretty much equivalent to an NC-17 today. He said if he’d known it he would have added a lot more sex and nudity to the film).

Dinner & Cocktails: There’s actually a drink called LSD, which I think is fitting for this flick:

0.5 oz  Banana Liqueur
0.5  oz Vodka
1 wedge  Lemon
1 sprinkle  Sugar
0.25 oz  Sambuca

Pour banana liqueur and vodka into shot glass. Place lemon wedge over shot glass. Sprinkle with sugar and add float of Sambuca.

Sounds kinda disgusting, but who knows. Maybe it’s better if you do the real LSD first. As for food…anti-establishment all the way! You have to fight the man…the chef..man…and go against the grain of society to make your own voice heard, baby…put a hot dog on a hamburger bun…eat your steak with your hands…radical ideas like that. You know where I’m comin’ from, brothers and sisters. Lay down that groovy flower power. Or something.

Anyway while you’re enjoying your hippiefest I’ll be at the Tiki Bar having a Zombie. Later kids!

-Tiki Chris P, like, sitting in the center of the cosmos, listening to sitar tunes and watching the pretty swirly colors of the tropical flowers.

Tiki Lounge Talk features a new Mod Movie Monday every week. Check it out, kats  & kittens!

The Cotton Club from 1984 for Mod (Retro) Movie Monday at Tiki Lounge Talk

The Cotton Club, 1984

Sometimes the Mod Movie Mondays don’t come until Tuesday. Most of the time they’re not really Mod, but it sounds good in the title. This week we have a retro-tastic movie that captured the 1920s in a way they could only do in the 1980s. From Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Evens, here’s

The Cotton Club

from 1984 starring Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Gregory Hines, Bob Hoskins, James Remar, Nick Cage, Maurice Hines, Lonette McKee, Lawrence (Larry) Fishburn and Fred Gwin.

Wow! With a cast and management like that, plus a $42 million buck budget at the time, there’s no way this movie couldn’t be one of the best, most entertaining, most award-winning and amazing flicks of all time, right? Right?

Well..er..

Ok, back in 1984 the movie got panned pretty bad. People expected a lot more from the guys who brought you “The Godfather”. Well kids, this flick was plagued with problems from the start, including money troubles and an actual murder. But 26 years later no one really remembers much of that. What we remember was a movie that looked incredible, with hot flappers and Richard Gere actually playing the coronet. We remember a movie that took Duke Ellington’s music and recreated it with some of the best jazz session musicians available at the time, some playing antique instruments to get the right sound. We remember Herman Munster playing a gangster, and not one but TWO 80’s montages. And, of course, in true mid-80’s fashion, there was a music video (Ill Wind) inserted neatly into the middle of the flick. And yet not one note of the score was played on a DX-7.

What I’m getting at is The Cotton Club is really a damned good movie, not matter what the critics at the time had to say (dig this: Time Mag has the original 1984 review posted online! See it here).

Why you should watch this movie: Beautiful sets, incredible music, terrific dance sequences. Fantastic characters drawn from Lena Horne, George Raft, Bix Beiderbeck, The Nicholas Brothers and pretty much every gangster from New York to Chicago. Gregory Hines tap dancing with his brother, Maurice. Bob Hoskins trying not to look like his character from Roger Rabbit. Diane Lane looking hot as hell. Pretty good Cab Calloway impersonator. Wacky Hollywood ending which lets you in on the big secret…which is don’t take this movie too seriously. It ain’t the freakin’ Godfather.

Dinner and Drinks: For dinner, why not choose from the Cotton Club’s menu? As for drinks, if you can get your hands on some bathtub gin, go for it. If not, I’d say Manhattans and champagne cocktails are in order all around.

My Take: As a young swinger just starting to learn jazz clarinet and sax, and just recently discovering the great riffs of the masters such as Ellington and Calloway, hearing this music in stereo and seeing performers play it and dance to it on the silver screen was a really big deal for me. This movie combined all the things I liked: Hot Jazz, hot flappers, gangsters, classic cars and big-brimmed hats. I learned all the songs on the album and could play all the solos by age 15. It was one of the first movies we recorded off HBO using our new-fangled video tape recording machine (The one with the top loading tapes and the remote with the wire on it), and I watched it over and over again. I dressed like the gangsters (including the hat) and incorporated their style into my first writings. Yeah, that’s right kats, even back then I was into the scene, into the retro thing long before it was labeled ‘Retro”. Dig? Yeah man, that’s a solid five.

-Zoot Jackson filling in for Tiki Chris, reporting from a smokey basement speakeasy somewhere in Harlem.

Catch a new Mod Movie Monday every week (sometimes even on Monday) here at Tiki Lounge Talk, the hepcats’ joint for jumpin’ and jivin’.

Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!

Straight out of hell comes three krazy hot roddin’ chicks out for kicks. From 1965 here comes Russ Meyers’

Faster Pussycat! KILL! KILL!

Starring Tura Santana, Haji and Lori Williams.

It’s been said that Russ Meyer named this movie Faster Pussycat! KILL! KILL! because he believes that a movie has everything when it contains speed (faster), sex (pussycat) and violence (KILL! KILL!). Well, there’s plenty of all of it in this Black & White B-Beauty.

First off, I don’t think there were three hotter chicks to zoom out of the ’60s. Santana is so stacked it’s a wonder she can fit behind the wheel of that sportster. Of course I have a thing for the blonde stripper.

What’s the flick about? Three sleazy, badass girls that like to race hot European sports cars and start brawls go too far and commit murder. It gets more insane from there. Some of it is so violent you’ll wonder how they got away with it in the ’60s. Some of it is funny, intentionally. Some of it is krazy sexy, even by today’s standards. The flick is such a cult classic that one of our favorite retro-lovin’ kats, Quintin Tarantino has his own version in the works, slated for 2012 release. If anyone else were re-making the flick I’d say hell no. But with QT at the wheel, it’s got to be good (but still no match to the original). In the mean time see the original in all its black and white glory, and get ready to experience the dirty, gritty, sleazy side of the 1960’s.

Dinner & Drinks: If you can get your hands on some moonshine, go for it. And Southern cooking all the way…fried chicken, biscuits, you catch my drift. If you’re brave you can try a Tura Santana Cocktail: three parts moonshine, one part hi-test gasoline, with a dash of blood. Light it up. (Tiki Lounge Talk not responsible for burnt eyebrows or damaged organs)

-Tiki Chris Pinto reporting from the back seat of the ’53 Chevy Hot Rod, at the drive-in movies behind the Tiki Bar.

Tiki Lounge Talk - The swingin’ retro & tiki culture blog for red-blooded vintage hipsters, man.

For The Mad Men Lovers: How To Succeed In Business Without Even Trying, 1967 for Mod Movie Monday

In honor of Sunday’s Season Four Premier of Mad Men, I thought I’d treat you swingers to a little fun flick from 1967…based on the Broadway musical, here’s

How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying

from 1967 starring a young and crazy Robert Morse as J Pierrepont Finch.

When I first watched Mad Men four years ago, the one person that really clicked in my head was Cooper. He had a very familiar look, especially his expressions. Through the magic of the modern interwebs I was able to do a world-wide search for this actor’s previous accomplishments (Ok, I went right to IMDB) and realized I had recently seen the kat in How to Succeed in Business!

Robert Morse in "How To Succeed In Business"

Man, what a great circle of events. Robert Morse originated the part of “Ponty” in HTSIBWET in 1961 and won a Tony for best actor. When the movie came along he, along with Rudy Vallee, Ruth Kobart and Sammy Smith all recreated their roles from the Broadway version. His character starts out as a window washer who, with the help of a book entitled, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” decides to take a shot at climbing the corporate ladder. Executive is written all over his future, and his goal is to someday run the company.

Robert Morse in Mad Men

Change the timing by 30 years, and it becomes very easy to see Cooper’s character starting out with some of the same characteristics, basically making his character in How To Succeed a possible background (although a goofy one) for Burt Cooper. (What’s really funny is how the film treats the Advertising Department and its stigma at the company).

Basically, it’s a very kool connection for the retro series Mad Men to make by hiring an actor who actually portrayed these types of characters at the actual time this series takes place. Dig?

As for the movie itself, what a fun flick it is. It’s a musical with some swingin’ tunes. The sets are fantastic…more early-60s style than late. Ultra Modern and swanky-galore. Since it was originally staged in ‘61, the movie maintains that era’s look and feel.

There are a lot of laughs, and by the end you’ll be hoping the kid makes it. When it’s over, watch a first season Mad Men and you’ll see a few cues from this movie. The kids that put this series together definitely watched this flick once or twice!

-Tiki Chris reporting from the screening room at World Wide Widgets.
This is Tiki Lounge Talk, the swingin’ retro tiki blog for kool kats and hip kitties.