Hi, Mom!
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C- Film: B
Brian De Palma is primarily known for his thrillers and
Gangster films, but his cutting-edge origins go back to the late 1960s. After varied work that included co-directing
The Wedding Party (1963, issued 1969) with Cynthia Munroe, he first
directed on his own with Murder a la Mod! (1968). Greetings (1968) followed; an
experimental, satirical reflection of late 1960s counterculture that originally
earned an X-rating. While we intend to
catch it on a recent low-budget DVD, MGM has issued the sequel from 1969, Hi,
Mom! This is a welcome surprise.
You do not need to see the original to appreciate this
very funny, daring, smart and rather politically incorrect further look at the
counterculture, in which De Palma’s long-known extended delving into Alfred
Hitchcock territory begins. Robert
DeNiro is a Vietnam veteran who rents a dump of a place so he can film his
neighbors on film. The Rear Window
reference is as visual as it is figurative, but the connection to Michael
Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) is also there and becomes stronger as the
film moves along. The twist here is
that this is a much more urban setting and minorities will play a larger
part. This extends to De Palma’s twist
on the “film within a film” by sending up public TV at the time. Before it was renamed PBS, the Public
Broadcasting System was known as NET, or National Educational Television. You can still see the logo in early episodes
of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood on the first model house the camera starts
on.
The idea was a system of stations that would serve the
community and give people who never had a chance to be seen or heard a voice
for the first time. The problem is that
the network was always considered “too stuffy” and De Palma (with co-story
writer and producer Charles Hirsch) in a way that may contradict its mission,
so they present their version: N.I.T., or National Intellectual
Television. That is amusing (maybe nit,
as in nitwit?), but the real point is having a group of radical Black Power
advocates having their own TV show. The
show is “TV within a film” called Be Black, Baby! It offers several “segments” that address
the problems with institutionalized racism of the time that still exists to
enough of an extent and caused social upheaval in the first place. This goes from interviews on the street that
become confrontational, to the radicals painting their black faces white and
blackening the faces of their white guests so they know how bad the experience
of discrimination is.
DeNiro gets into this by way of his founding of Peep Art,
sex acts that “happen” to be captured by his camera (talk about foretelling
future events), he signs up for the role of an abusive policeman for the NIT
show. This is very hard, bold material
and includes hard language and male frontal nudity, but it tells the
story. The subplot of the TV program
you would never see anywhere, even on TV today, fits in perfectly with the main
narrative of the road to “real-life” subversion DeNiro’s Jon Rubin
exercises. Jennifer Salt, Allen
Garfield, Lara Parker and Charles Durning are among the more familiar faces in
a cast filled with some great acting moments and maybe a few people who are not
aware they are on camera.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is not bad for
a low-budget film from its time, but is especially impressive against the pan
& scan flipside version, which is missing frame image on all four
sides! With that said, the print and
film shows its age a little, but looks pretty good without the comparison to
the butchered version. Cinematographer
Robert Elfstrom does a great job of pulling together the various types of
shooting here, including a great mock up of black and white TV broadcasts (as
many channels had not gone color yet, though with the racial issues addressed,
may be yet another in-joke) and is much great footage of the streets of New
York. Note that there is also mock sex
film moments that are aside from other nudity in the film.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is also not bad for its age,
including the hilarious title song that sounds like it is in the style of very
early (or even pre-Walter Becker/Donald Fagen) Steely Dan. Eric Kaz did the score, while John Andreolli
wrote the lyrics to title song (sung by Jeff Lesser) in its slick New York
Rock/Jazz style, Grady Tate is “right on” in his vocal on Be Black, Baby
and Boney Srabian offers vocals for I’m Looking At You. You have to wonder if the Skye Records
soundtrack release was in stereo or not, because this sounds good in mono and
suggests there is even more sound to uncover.
De Palma often has more interesting sound on his films than he is given
credit for. The only extra is the
original theatrical trailer, which is especially interesting considering it was
an independent release. Yes, it was a
time of a more challenging cinema and Hi, Mom! Holds up better than most
such films from the period. You’ll see
why De Palma was on his way as one of America’s best filmmakers.
- Nicholas Sheffo
