A Remarkable Document

A Remarkable Document

Al Dekker:
I was browsing in the West Village Kim's, wondering why more of Alan's titles were not represented, when I was approached by a disheveled little man. He stared at me intently with the eyes of one who has seen too much or done too many psychedelics, and handed me a rumpled piece of lined notebook paper. "Smithee worked with Tenney," he blurted; then he sprinted from the store, knocking over the Universal Horrors reissue rack as he exited.

I knew the name Tenney. Del Tenney directed Roy Scheider's first feature, CURSE OF THE LIVING CORPSE. This 1964 gore cheapie today is best remembered for its method of conception: the director made a list of recent horror movies, determined that the words "curse", "living", and "corpse" occured in the titles of the most successful films, and decided that a movie called CURSE OF THE LIVING CORPSE would draw record-breaking audiences. The hard work finished, it remained only to write, cast, and direct the thing...

With this bit of history in mind, I unfolded the paper. Immediately I recognized the handwriting of The Master, and I was stunned by what I read. Yes, it indicated that Smithee was familiar with Tenney's method, but it was clear that Smithee's brilliant advance over Tenney's crude beginning could be compared readily to Beethoven's development of Haydn's ideas.

I now present the contents of this revelatory document without further comment.

Try out The Interactive Smithee Title Chart, specially hypertextualized by nemo!

x. trapnel:
Well, I for one certainly await such future masterpieces as 60 FT DEFENESTRATORS OF THE BODEGA OF DOOM , WET SPAWN FROM ZOMBIE HIGH II, and BLAZING NUDISTS BENEATH MY REFRIGERATOR....
Grey Zone 1:
The mind, as it usually does in things Smithee, boggles. Who knows what fine titles have been renamed and repackaged without our knowledge? Sometimes, even I, admit to growing weary at the task of assembling The Master's ouevre in its breathtaking entirty.


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Copyright 1996 by the respective authors