Wicked, Wicked
Following in the footsteps of THE CHELSEA GIRLS, WOODSTOCK and DePalma's original SISTERS (which I'm trying to pretend was never remade), the 1973 flick WICKED, WICKED was the first and only film presented in Duo-Vision, meaning it's presented (almost) entirely in split-screen.
The film follows the exploits of a misunderstood psycho who pulls on a rubber Halloween mask and plays Norman Bates with the single, pretty, young blondes that come to stay in the famous Hotel de Coronado. All the while, a bumbling hotel detective (David Bailey) is trying to figure out why blonde visitors keep skipping out before settling their bills... Then when a vampy brunette chanteuse (Tiffany Bolling, KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS) catches our anti-hero's eye before donning a cheap blonde wig, she finds herself his next target, so it's up to the hotel dick (who, coincidentally, happens to be her ex-husband) to keep her safe from harm.
Although it's partly a slasher movie, WICKED, WICKED is more of a Hitchcockian black comedy thriller, minus the mystery -- the audience isn't kept in the dark about the killer's identity for very long (think PSYCHO meets BAD RONALD by way of BABY JANE). The movie's not clever enough to be truly Hitchcockian, but it does deserve props for effort. The split-screen gimmick is sometimes goofy (at times, there's not enough going on to justify the use of two points of view), but when it works -- like when characters tells their version of a story as the REAL story unfolds on the other side of the screen -- it works well. The acting, dialogue and some of the film's surprise revelations range from deliciously ridiculous to b-movie bad to wickedly campy, and the ending's not hard to predict, but it is brilliantly atmospheric, which makes it rather creepy. And then there's the music...
Once the theme song -- penned by Phillip Springer ("Santa Baby") and Irwin Levine (The Partridge Family) and sung by Tiffany Bolling -- gets in your head, it'll be stuck for all eternity! And adding to the atmosphere, the bulk of the score that's played throughout the film (literally by an oft-seen, senile organist who has absolutely nothing to do with plot!) is the exact same music that was composed for the 1925 silent classic THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. All in all, it's a highly flawed film, but it's so weird, campy and quirky that it oozes charm. WICKED, WICKED truly had the potential to be a ginormous hit on the '70s midnight movie circuit, but it appears the film never got a re-release after its initial theatrical run, so it's pretty much languished in total obscurity.
In addition to b-movie queen Bolling, the film also stars Randolph Roberts (Ritchie Cunningham's twice-seen older brother from "Happy Days") as the hotel handyman; Madeleine Sherwood ("The Flying Nun"s Mother Superior) as a penniless, over-the-hill resident of the hotel; Roger Bowen ("Arnie," ZAPPED) as the hotel manager; Stefanianna Christopherson (the original voice of Daphne on "Scooby Doo") as a slutty gift shop worker; perennial bit player Arthur O'Connell ("The Second Hundred Years") as the hotel engineer; '60s sexpot Diane McBaine ("Surfside 6") as a quickly dispatched victim; the ubiquitous Ian Abercrombie in a bit part as a room serviceman; and Edd "Kookie" Byrnes ("77 Sunset Strip," GREASE) as the resident lifeguard/gigolo.
WICKED, WICKED was never officially released on VHS or DVD, but through frequent airings on Turner Classic Movies it's developed a cult following. Too bad the network botched the aspect ratio. There's been rumors that the film will soon be released by The WB Archive.
