Corn’s-a-Poppin’ @ Doc Films
WTF?: The God-damndest Things Ever Seen, my series of bizarre cinema at Doc Films, continues tonight with the crown jewel of the series: Corn's-a-Poppin'. It's an utterly mysterious backstage musical. Nobody seems to have any real information about it - we can't even confirm the year of its release, though 1951 is probably right. In fact, for all we know, its screenings at Doc have been the only theatrical exhibitions of the movie ever. All we know is that one of its screenwriters was none other than a starving Kansas City television worker named Robert Altman.
I won't attempt to describe the film anymore, as my friend Kyle Westphal wrote the definitive piece about the film on his blog - and this is not just because it is likely to be the only piece ever to be written about Corn's-a-Poppin', but because it is a truly insightful look at the kind of unaccountable cinema that a certain contingent of Doc people/alums are particularly entranced by:
The emotional heart of a picture filled with obtusely intimate moments is the penultimate number, “On Our Way to Mars.” It has the greatest build-up of all the numbers, with little Susie begging her brother to be allowed to sing with him on the air. The result is a piece of minimalist s-f: Susie and Johnny float in a cardboard rocket while crooning about finding a grilled cheese sandwich on the moon. They set up rhyme schemes and then abandon them, finishing couplets with ‘Zoom! Zoom!’ It’s a creepy number, filled with romantic and sexual overtones—already present from the first reel of Corn’s-A-Poppin’ during which we’re not quite sure whether Susie is Johnny’s sister or his midget bride. (Susie speaks with all the bluster and toughness of a boozed-out Hollywood sideshow, cooks all of Johnny’s meals in an apron, and possesses a disposition very unbecoming of a child star.) But “On Our Way to Mars” becomes unexpectedly moving when Johnny sings about ‘dreams in Cinemascope,’ a timidly self-conscious expression about the kind of ragged, desperate movie that Corn’s-A-Poppin’ must be. Its actors will never see their names on a marquee or headline a Hollywood production; the reference to unattainable aesthetic luxuries has the effect of reminding us that Corn’s-A-Poppin’ constitutes a wooly alternative to them. The enterprise is so small-time that most of the performances come across better and stronger as documentary records of deer in the proverbial limelight. Intentionally or not, local acts of guerilla cinema like Corn’s-A-Poppin’ unleash a torrent of poetic feeling and reveal a new territory in film aesthetics.
For many years at Doc, the people running the organization were obsessed with Stanley Donen's Bedazzled starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, which you may remember was remade by Harold Ramis in 2000 with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley. Doc for some reason would screen the original Bedazzled every single year. That tradition ended some time ago, but perhaps it is time to start it up again...only with Corn's-a-Poppin' instead.
The film screens Thursday, April 9 at 9:00 p.m at Doc Films, 1212 E. 59th St, Chicago. There will be some delightful shorts beforehand as well.
Tags: corn's-a-poppin', doc films, robert altman