[STAY SICK!]Anyone who likes low budget exploitation film, trash films and juvenile Delinquent film, familiar to a lot of American directors, actors and producers. But there are very few who know that in Denmark we actually even had our own equivalent of Ed Wood. An instructor who briefly lit up an otherwise so puritanical and left overlarge Danish film scene with a film that paid homage to all the 13 deadly sins, only to disappear into oblivion again. But now it will be over. STAY SICK! MAGAZINE dazzles now for the first time ever up the story of Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. The man who made the most amazing Danish film ever: STONE BROKEN "HEROES"! So bring your leather jacket and put a garage rock record on the phonograph. This is yum important!
[[posterous-content:pid___0]]
ELEMENTARY BASIC KNOWLEDGEFront page of this issue of STAY SICK! are taken from the movie STONE BROKEN "HEROES" and the article you now have started to read about the film's director. It should be no secret that yours truly is pretty excited about both STONE BROKEN "HEROES", the film's director, his other films and on the whole story about these films. Well let us get started for Sean! Næhh hey, wait a minute! Before we start, there is something important, basic fundamental knowledge, we must learn first, otherwise it will not work. Ha? Elementary basics? Now what is that? An article about a film director and fucking some old butts movie, you're not learning to read! No, you do not, but I will probably think that there is good reason to do anyway. Like most kids have tried to play chess for example, without having learned the rules and although they probably had a lot of fun as long as it lasted, so there can be no argument about that now once more rewarding when you first learned the rules. And although there might not even have rules when you have read an article in a snotty underground booklet about some old movie, it helps it feels to have a few things in place.
Psychotronic FILM CULTURELogo text on the front of STAY SICK! is every time: "Devil's Sea sole psykotroniske film magazine" (OK, this time it is slightly modified, but that does not so much in this context!). What you need booklet you know, the term "psychotronic". "Psychotronic" is my own Danish translation of the U.S. "psychotronic", a term invented by Michael Weldon, editor of PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO; the leaf, which soon for many years at the nearest has been regarded as a bible for fans of obscure films. But what is true psychotronic films? According to Michael Weldons own definition, it might be all sorts of movies, but they must have some psychotronic elements in it: People belonging to the fantastic genres, ie. film which is something that is beyond the ordinary, such as science fiction movies, horror movies, gunk-fu movies, superhero movies, etc. are psykotroniske film. Moreover, films that have achieved cult status, is also psykotroniske (unless they're too popular, even though such CASABLANCA is both a good movie and cult films, I will not argue that it is psychotronic, there is the known, but then on the other hand, the course, with Peter Lorre as clearly defined as "psychotronic" so it is naturally debatable!). And films that maybe are common enough, but trying to live that they have dismantled rock musicians or failed god bold sternness with, which often do not have a concept of play (drama). Many of the stars from blaxploitationfilmene was former U.S. Humboldt players such as Jim Brown and Fred Williamson (whose nickname "The Hammer" came from the football field where he used to hammer his opponents down!) [Not thereby said that even those two do not can act in movies (Williamson are overwhelmingly, Brown, however, has always been somewhat "stiff" in it!), but it was the only thing I could think of right now]. Also movies with people who either had been or were later politicians are psykotroniske; eg Ronald Reagan's old movies can be found in Weldons releases (which, incidentally, includes not only the magazine but also the two important encyclopedias THE PSYCHOTRONIC Encyclopaedia of FILM and THE PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO GUIDE). Any movie with O.J. Simpson's psychotronic (not that it so that something worthwhile purposes.) Almost all films about rock play's life and (with others in the role of rock legends - filamentary pigeons mostly not in this context) because Hollywood's version of rock stars' lives are almost always hysterical misery / laughable.
Another genre that clearly achieves the status of "psychotronic" is bad keystroke film, ie. film within the aforementioned genres, which is also so bad they're good - that movie is so bad that this in itself makes them "just enjoy"! Thus, of course not to say that any movie that is bad is also good, no, no, there are plenty of movies that just are bad and do not have anything quite useful in itself, for example those police academy movies are something argt shit without equal - even if Christopher Lee was at one time. There are good bad typing, but that is also plenty of bad typing, which is just bad! I remember once when I had something extremely boring work on a ferry, a work colleague one day during a coffee break said to me that he thought Star Wars was the best sci-if movies ever made. I mentioned then that there are plenty of old sci-fi movie that is quite entertaining, for example all those from the 50s, which in reality more or less were all communist scare film (ie, they were acting on the Most of evil aliens who solely was out to gain control over / kill the righteous and God-fearing Americans, but were in fact symbols of Communists). For that said my mate that he thought the movie was bad, because in the old days you could not figure out how to create special effects in Star Wars, and so it was not longer! That the old movie could have an entertainment value precisely because special effectiveness was poor (control panels that bend in when someone goes into them or aliens / mutants / dræberdyr which were made of paper mache), it occurred to him not enter and ... well, so it is enough that most people watch movies and TV, they overlook the element that something can be hard entertaining - even if it is something bad!
So when we here in STAY SICK! once in reference to a film as being good, even if the same film of the "regular" reviewers was shot down as rubbish, it's not necessarily because we do not know what is good quality and not, but because our definition of what is good and not good is quite another. "Real" reviewers in newspapers, movies, magazines and television programs often do not give a damn idea of how to deal with bad typing movie (which, by some called trash film) an, they understand it simply does not and therefore plays a secure card and calls the product poor. But this is now what: we fans of obscure films are surrounded by cultural illiterate and therefore there is so much more reason why you should be glad of your STAY SICK!
Ok, so I think we have turned the most basic rules lay ... and lets get started!
ED WOODSome years ago I was in Valhalla. No, I was not dead and had met Thor and Odin, but had a trip to the cinema "Valhalla" (in Melbourne) to see Tim Burton's then-new movie ED WOOD, which had its premiere. To see ED WOOD on a huge screen is an experience that everyone gets the chance, should spend on themselves. Great, I just say! Well, most of them have obviously seen the film, but otherwise is it about film director Ed Wood jr. Which 1950'erns USA laboriously began making his own films outside the big studios in Hollywood. With little money and (especially) eager but not very trained "actors", he made movies, he believed in; film which he believed had made. Hm, or maybe he made them, just because he honestly and sincerely believed that he was the next new master instructor. Like all the rockabilly cats, in the wake of Elvis (when he went in leather jacket and was raw) fully convinced thought they were the next "Elvis," the next big rockabilly hope. Often it was only for one or two single plates and then they disappeared again. The press would quickly call them failures, but if you find the old syvtommere (ie, single plates) forward (which is not hard since the happy American Tim Warren publishes them on the sampler LPs (1) down in Hamburg on Crypt Records) so you can often hear singers who did something totally crazy game that should have been a hit if otherwise there had been any justice, but who were not. And the same with many filmmakers, people who made movies with great entertainment value, well, maybe not because they were especially good, but because they had some bad key value, which meant that they still deserve their fame. Ed Wood was fortunately his place in the sun because of Tim Burton's films, and hurray for that. But it was not all equally. Some remained "famous" within the genre that they made movies, but never reached out to a large audience. There is hardly any horror movie fans who have not heard of Dario Argento, Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci, but try to ask people, even film freaks who look "normal" films, whether they know some of these directors and ten out of ten will say No. In a recent issue of Euroman they made a list of the most important Italian films, and guess yourself if you had mentioned Argento, Bava, or any other Italian genre film director. The answer is obviously no. Finally, there is also the genre filmmakers who disappear into oblivion. Would Ed Wood had achieved his fame outside kultfilmfankredse and constituencies who likes psykotroniske movie if Burton had not made the film about him? Hardly. There are certainly many crooked and "bad" filmmakers who deserve to be discovered, but who do not get it.
ED WOODS DANISH CousinOk, dear reader, at long last, we are approaching the core of this article: the subject! The thing is, that we are a couple of pieces that have long been aware of a filmmaker who once long ago made some totally psykotroniske beads. Movies that had it all: "actors" who played (so that even Ed Wood would have been proud), foolishly executed fights, drunkenness, fornication, naked girls, youth crime, profanity and anything else a heart that burns for psykotroniske film, desires - and it all even added fantastic surf music. And so I have incidentally never seen (except in the title on the cover and in the introduction!) That he really was a Dane! His name was Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and made his film back in the sixties, mark well before the hippies ruined everything with their bare toes, social realism film and jingle-janglemusik. But while Poul Nyrup film contains all the right things to make him a cult favorite, so he has remained out of oblivion. Unfortunately there is no Tim Burton, who discovered him ... but so is his masterpiece, STONE BROEN "HEROES", turn on the cover of this issue of STAY SICK! - And it's probably almost as good!
Telling various American film directors story is mostly not very difficult: you'll just find some reference books, biographies and magazines about him back and voila, you can easily and quickly write a long dissertation on him. Unfortunately it is not so easy with Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. The thing is that when he was active in the '60s, he and his film well enough some publicity in the newspapers, but it was not very positive publicity. Rasmussen was actually not very welcome by the press (and which we shall enter later, he still to this day do not!) And when his career ended, there was apparently not really someone who felt the need to nedfælle his story. And therefore the information I could dig up, was very sparse. Most dates from newspaper accounts from the middle sixties, which were photocopied and reprinted in a film program sometime in the 80s in connection with the Video International released the film on video. Sorry took V.I. it is not very important to write when the various newspaper articles were from or what newspapers, so when in the following article refers to "an article", then it is what led to them. I've also got some info from Heine Sørensen, who over the years have heard a lot through the big city jungle drums and finally I have quizzed the female owner of Video Net in Korsor, who also provide information, not least because she grew up in Villa Vennely!
THE UNKNOWN DENMARK: 1960!To give a proper view of a mostly unknown filmmaker, one must necessarily also tell about the time and place which provides the framework for the events.
In the early 60s had been in Denmark, only the state radio, ie. Danmarks Radio. Back then it meant a single TV channel, which is almost exclusively sent in the evening, and two radio channels P1 and P2. Attitude of both DR as in government was that the Danes for all the world could not fordummes. This meant that most came from the United States never really came to Denmark and who did, did so in a roundabout way, for example, the part of the new rock music, which reached the country, made it as cover versions that had been translated into Danish and was sung by Otto Brandenburg and whoever else was at that time. In any case, the part of the music, which reached a larger audience and get the charts. Plates with Elvis and contemporary artists, one could not buy in the U.S., but you had to go to Sweden if you wanted to get hold of it. You think the almost, it's a lie, but now that Elvis' records could not be bought in Denmark, so there was once a singer who began calling themselves "Melvis"! Sweden was always far ahead of Denmark when it came to pop culture, and it is really still there. In Sweden, as in the U.S. also had two public radio stations, but it got quite quickly a music channel, P3, who played pop / rock music (called "music radio"). But even that would have been in Denmark, the attitude was that American pop music was just something silly teenagers and there was actually some who were indignant that one at all could find to discuss whether we should have a popular music channel. It was then in place to Jørgen Mylius had two weekly music programs of 20 minutes with the title: "Pop music between homework" (a title which I borrowed in the last issue!). Again made sure to have your index finger promotion, it was hardly a coincidence that the music should be heard between homework! But there was obviously someone who wanted to hear the new toner. The only problem was that you could not organize an alternative radio station inside the Denmark, since the DR had a monopoly on radio and television or a privately owned radio would be closed by the cops immediately. The solution was then that some smart people slammed a radio together on a ship (yes, it is referred to always as a ship, but it was probably just a fishing boat) and then was sent pop music to Copenhagen and parts of Zealand from a locality outside Danish waters. Authorities called the course the station for a pirate radio, but really it was probably not true (without, however, I know) because the radio did not do anything illegal, as it was outside the Danish waters. But Who knows.
FRIENDS ON THE RADIOAs most know, so called Radio Radio Mercur and it was here that Poul Nyrup Rasmussen worked as a soundman in the early 60s. He also worked at another radio called DCR and (apparently) also was on a ship. In a newspaper article published eight days before the Prime Minister's first film had premiered in 1963 it is mentioned that Rasmussen was 29 years old at the time and after many long hours of calculation I have come to the conclusion that he therefore must have been born in 1934. He was a trained sound engineer and worked on Laterna Film, Danish Film Compagni and Saga Film, before he came to Radio Mercur. Rasmussen also had previously worked as a factory worker, salesman, handyman, other small jobs and he was actually also a skilled saddler! At the two stations, he met some other radio people: Preben Ploug, who was a technician at Mercur and DCR, and Preben "Basse" Nicolajsen who was a carpenter on the ships, Take Røpke, who was also engineer and Donald Dahlerup, who was speaker and reporter. These "friends" would later become important in Poul Nyrup Rasmussen's career. The case was the fact that he had long gone and messed with scripts and had felt like making your own films. As mentioned, he had been a sound engineer at various studios, he had such helped to make fellow soldiers, GIRL AND PRESS PHOTOGRAPHER, THE RICH WIDOW. The film, which they had talked about making should be about some friends from the other side of the track, that is from the "wrong" side of town, ie. from Nørrebro / Vesterbro environment rather than a Hellerup-environment! (As was mentioned in a newspaper article). After working together on Radio Mercur and DCR a while they parted: Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and Heritage Røpke went into the movie business (this info I have from a newspaper article and what it was the two did in the movie business was not mentioned), Anders Dahlerup came in at DR's radio, and Preben Ploug and Preben "Basse" Nicolajsen took a while abroad (it is unknown what they were doing there). They met from time to time and talked about the movie, and when they had money problems in place - by Rasmussen took a lot of locks, etc. (see the interview with him after the article), they went running. The roles were partially occupied by them and also had gotten hold of such Poul "Crown Prince" Martin (who was to become one of the solid players in the 3 out of 4 movies that were made), Anette Post, a dancer, later revue actress in Soweto, and a 15-year-old teenage girl named Marianne Thames, who won the role after it had launched a competition to BT, where there were 500 girls who volunteered. Together with Anette Post and instructor Solveig Ersgaardø formed Nyrup film company Penguin Films that would produce the film. Check also the interview with Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, reproduced here at one of the sides including about his thoughts about the film's budget.
BETWEEN FRIENDSWorking titles of the film was "Friends," "Love Between Friends" and "The Crown Prince and his friends." The final title was, however, simply BETWEEN FRIENDS. The film is basically about a guy who comes out of jail and meets his old buddies again. Together they make a crib, keeping a wild binge with naked girls and cool surf music, and there is also a crazy car chase, a murder and a woman is beaten down. In other words, a truly psychotronic gem. One newspaper described the conditions in the film played out in a leather jacket environment and this is what one must keep in mind when you read this "thesis" about the film, although there are listed all the things with naked ladies and half pornographic scenes, so these were so much just ingredients in a Danish juvenile Delinquent films (films about youth roots). In the film, contributes also a Danish garage rock / surf band (which was then called 'barbed wire music "- probably because the sound was so extremely" ragged "compared to what else was donated to Denmark with Liva Weel, Otto Brandenburg, Grethe Ingemann, etc.) called Weedons (2). In Rasmussen's other films also starred early 60s garage rock bands (more on them later). And let me emphasize again: we are talking about the early 1960s here, not something with something hippie-shit!
I talked earlier about radio / television monopoly conditions in Denmark in the early 60s, but there were also other problems that today are so far away that most probably do not even recognize that they exist. Most people know that Denmark was the first country to release pornography in 1970 (hm, or was it '71?) And we "tits" us (ha ha) probably a little of that we were / are other more puritanical country and we take for granted that Denmark has always been a pioneer in terms of the free sex in the media and entertainment. But actually it was quite different then in the early and mid 60s. Abroad, it was considered that perhaps godtnok Scandinavia (that in this context means Sweden and Denmark, but definitely not Norway / Finland!) To be freer in terms of sexual excesses. But unlike later compared, it was in the countries south of the film with a more "risqué" content could be displayed. Actually made the Penguin Film two versions of BETWEEN FRIENDS, namely a dimmed version of the domestic Scandinavian market and an uncut version for overseas. That is just the opposite of what the situation was later.
As Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said in the interview, which you can read after this article, then came the movie cost approx. DKK 350,000 to make and if not paid off home, so he had to work as a sound engineer again, but since he is already the following year came with a sequel, so he must have earned enough in the movie to continue. DKK 350,000 was also approx. half of what an ordinary film cost at the time. The cast was also no pay for the movie, but would share the eventual profits, and borrowed to various locations such as gas station, tavern, cottage, etc., so also here to save money.
Although BETWEEN FRIENDS today do not even look so sexually challenging like a soft porn program on RTL, so the film was back in 1963, the strongest they had ever seen in Denmark; actually said Harry Olsen, director of the company, the European Film A / S which would distribute it in Denmark, the film revels in nasty scenes and you refused to believe that even a strong beklippet version would have no chance to escape the censorship! Way to go! And a Swedish landlord named David Goldstein, who made himself into "the kind of movie," promptly secured the rights to distribute the film outside Scandinavia, after he had not even seen it, but only lurked some stills from it. Previously, the same Goldstein had success with another exploitation film; Norwegian GIRL LINE (which I do not know about). The article that I have this record from, reproduced also Goldstein expected to make a new fortune by sending BETWEEN FRIENDS, inter alia, South America. It's probably totally impossible to figure out, but it would be fun to know about the movie also saw actually came to America and how it went. Can anyone older South Americans remember it? And they have in that case lived a whole life with an idea of how a Danish youth is based on BETWEEN FRIENDS? The film was also shown in Sweden under the title TONÅRSSYNDARE (translated: "Teenage sinners"!). Another thing I noticed when reading through the many articles from back then is that these films were often mentioned (negatively) as "speculative film"! Whether it was the U.S. "exploitation film (s)" had been translated or whether the phrase was a mere Danish invention do not know. But even though the Danish film in general, then in the early '60s, then was not particularly sexually challenging, so did Northern and thus Danish girls some "erotic" reputation. In the introduction to an article in Ekstrabladet Tuesday 4th June 1963 wrote a Ambrolauri in the introduction: "There are still filmmakers who live high and beautiful to deliver movies on Nordic girls' alleged erotic escapades. A new Danish film," Between Friends "will be in demand in this market. Even before the film is finished, the first movie collector volunteered"
EXTRA LEAF was not the only ones who were outraged: in Berlingske Tidende, one could read Svend Kragh-Jacobsen writes: "It's not just the talentløseste, but also the dullest and worst Danish movie that is produced in many years - to shame for those who lends his name and canvas to the "!
Later in Ekatrabladet article comes journalist into that here they went and believed that "this speculation in the Nordic girls were about to be over phenomenon," but had to find that it was not yet (because BETWEEN FRIENDS came on the scene ) and the writer begins so disgusted to compare Rasmussen's film with another speculative films that some months earlier had been recorded in Stockholm, where (according to the journalist), an Italian film company had drunk girls full and was then filmed them (the story did not mention anything about what they in general had made during filming). In addition, include a film with Elke Sommer and Paul Newman, who played respectively a German sexpot character and a writer who goes to nudistmøder and have long conversations about "the Scandinavian girls erotic emancipation"! The journalist ends disgusted with: "It is not very pleasant myth sexorgier and girls erotic emancipation in Scandinavia live thus in the best velgåenhed." I have not seen the movie referenced and the title is not mentioned (please note that it was based on a "scandalous novel" called THE PRICE, so maybe the movie was called the same). The Italian film mentioned obviously not by name. If any readers know some of the film (and / or the Norwegian GIRL LINE), then the info on these will be welcomed with open arms). Although you can smile more than the lighter frigor journalist's outrage over the mentioned movies (OPTIONAL LEAF was apparently not quite as liberal as it was later when no one at least had and still has a hand 9-girl!) Then gives article yet also reason to wonder: Some of the other articles I've read (and draws on this article) refers to BETWEEN FRIENDS was the strongest films you have seen so far, but Extra Bladet reporter writes thus in June '63, that he went and thought that these speculative film was a closed chapter. There must therefore have been others who came earlier than June '63! What was that movie? Where have they gone and it's someone that you can possibly get to see today? Would they become cult films, if they were dug up? I wrote earlier in this article that Denmark in the early 1960s was like another country, and when you add these just mentioned questions, then you feel almost as if the period was not just another country but an unknown country in a completely different dimension. Unlike for example the U.S. where you have many film magazines and fanzines to dig that kind of psychotronic knowledge forward, there's not really anyone who has bothered to do it at home, let alone have bothered making the trouble to try to maintain just a roughly overview a past that no further away than it is in the same decade, which many of us are born in.
VILLA VENNELYThe following year made Poul Nyrup Rasmussen as its next film, which was titled VILLA VENNELY. Like BETWEEN FRIENDS was created for small money and amateurs in all roles and Basse was again. The only article I could find in which a budget for the film include the Swedish parade, where it is mentioned that it cost approx. 300,000 Swedish kronor to do (for comparison, that between friends, which cost 350,000 Dkr. In the Swedish newspaper was "translated" to 400,000 SEK.). STONE BROEN "HEROES" was estimated to have cost the 250,000 Skr. The recording was made in February and March '64. Once again the protagonists young people at odds with society, this time not petty criminals on the streets and taverns, but the staff at a call girl central. Rasmussen said in an interview with Parade, the film was half documentary. He actually went so far that he called it "a simple information film with a moral message"! My own guess is that this was an attempt to get some of the criticism of life. In Denmark (and Sweden arguably) had any films not only entertain. There should be real socialism and although we are currently seeing a lot of old folk comedies on DR and TV2 from the old days, movies with Dirch Passer, Helmut Oswald, Richard ... ehh, whatever it was, they were called at that time containing only fun and games, then you should not settle the wool over your eyes and think that they were praised by the press then. They did not actually, but they were popular! - So you could keep making them.
The story is pretty simple; head of call girl center, Boss, have parties every night of the "Villa Vennely" and invites men with thick characters boys, itching in the groin and an acidic havgasse home to come and enjoy life with booze, gambling, "noisy" music and willing girls. During the day before the evening's celebration provides Basse ("mother") for the girls. One of the girls have a drug problem, Basse fooling around and a religious spritter also appear. In this movie there is even more music than in Between Friends, as "barbed wire group" Danish Sharks (3) gives several numbers with and without vocalist Anette (4). In the role of Boss Erik seen Chris and the name you noticing! Erik Chris came namely to play the main role in any Danish film ever: the role of "Devil-John" in STONE BROEN "HEROES", but more on that later! Most of the movie takes place in "Villa Vennely" which was actually a house that was owned by Leif Jedig. Leif Jedig was in the '60 's photo lab, and later it was he who started the Video Net. According moyea FILM GUIDE: DANISH FILM FROM A TO Z, then shot and let him also in the early '60s striptease movies. In 1963 he settled in Mallorca, where he shot the film Mallorca SWEET LIFE (which gets mentioned later). Also according to movie wizard, it was Jedigs turnover of 3 million annually and he was therefore easily afford this huge villa. As the usual reader of this lifestyle magazine by, then STAY SICK! Editorial office address in butt town Slagelse. Slagelse is not far from the landfill Korsor and since a year ago opened a new branch of Video Net in Korsor, so did yours truly a gas mask on and went out against this sewer of a city. Although not a place most of all reminiscent of "The Cursed Earth" in the comic Judge Dredd, can keep a collector of old, dirty video cassettes away.
