Crimewave

In my last post, I talked about The Hudsucker Proxy, which the Coen Brothers and Sam Raimi penned together. Today, I'm going to take a look back at an earlier, and even more forgotten, collaberation with this trio, 1985's Crimewave.

This wild, noirish spoof starts out with the super nerdy Victor Ajex, Reed Birney, being lead to his death by electric chair in the Hudsucker Prison. While being dragged there, he tells the story of what lead him there. He was a technician for Trend-Odegard Security Systems. He finds out that one of his bosses, Mr. Trend, Edward R. Pressman, has hired two hitman, Paul L. Smith and Brion James, posing as exterminators, to rub out Trend's partner who was going to sell the business behind Trend's back to the sleazy Renaldo "The Heel," Bruce Campbell.

To distract Victor from the proceedings, Trend encourages him to go out and find his dream girl, and Victor does in the form of Nancy, Sheree J. Wilson, who happens to Renaldo's girl. She reluctantly agree's to a date with Victor in hopes to make Renaldo jealous. The two accidentally cross paths with the hitman and run afoul of the killers,as does everbody else who gets in there way.

Raimi took over the directing duties on this one and had a miserable time in the process. He constantly butted heads with the studio. He originally wanted Campbell in the lead, which the studio quickly shot down. They wanted a more traditional leading man. Which is kind of odd since Birney is anything but. Raimi also had issues with one of his leading ladies, Louise Lasser, who was having cocaine issues at the time. She became a real prima donna on set. She even fired her makeup artist and insisted to apply it herself, which was almost clownlike. She constantly argued with the cast and even refused to leave her trailer on several occasions. Lasser wasn't the only one having issues. James trashed his hotel room in an attempt to rid the demons from the light fixtures. Kooky.

The shoot went over budget and dealt with freezing temperatures, causing a lot of cast and crew to be sick during the late night, outdoor shoots. When the picture was done filming, the studio banned Raimi from the editing process. They even fired Raimi's composer, Joseph De Luca. To make matters even worse, the studio only released the film in Kansas and Alaska, which buried the film. Raimi, and everyone close to him that worked on this, was more than upset. Raimi has said that this was one of the low points in his career and doesn't like talking about it. Campbell, however, talks about it at great length in his novel, "If Chins Could Kill." A great read.

Despite all of the behind the scenes drama, I still think that the final result is a great film. A wild and hysterical ride, almost like a live action cartoon.Smith and James fair the best out of the cast as the crazed killers.

This is one that I discovered on VHS back in the day and I highly recommend it, especially if your in the mood for a zany evening.

It's available on dvd and blu ray.