From 1972, this is the last 16mm film I made just for fun. I got the idea from "Beyond the Fringe," a British comedy stage revue in the 60's. My Drama professor played an audio tape recording of a part of their show in which someone was stabbed with a sword and said "Now tis steel twixt gut and bladder interposed!" I never forgot how funny that line sounded. And so some years later I made a movie using such silly expressions. It's an evening in the LA home of 3 hippies - as if Shakespeare had written it. It is hardly Shakespeare of course, but I think the language in Shakespeare's time was overly ornate and complex. This film makes fun of that.
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This film was shot using a rented 16mm Arriflex BL, Nagra tape recorder and a shotgun mic - "real" film equipment this time. I had volunteer actors from USC, a small crew of Jerry Fairbanks employees and a budget of $1,000! The "set" is the actual Hollywood apartment of Les Blank, a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who produced quite a few documentary films about musicians. I even did the negative cutting for a couple of those. My friend, David Ludwig, who I have known since 7th grade, did the titles.
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Please note that there is a "bad" four letter word in this film. It wasn't in my script, but the actors came up with it, and I liked it.