Every once in awhile one runs across a movie that just makes you shake your head and go -- what possessed them? I am not talking about "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "Glen or Glenda", but something that ought to have worked in some way, but is just, well, weird. Someone lent me a copy of a 1960's film starring a too old Jimmy Stewart (bad wig, stunt doubles earning a lot of money) called "The Rare Breed" about two British ladies bringing Herefords to Texas to breed them with Longhorns. The whole basis of the film is, well, cattle sex. If they made it now, there would be graphic mounting scenes, sperm discussions, who knows. This film avoids all this, and yet it is all about whether the Hereford bull will impregnate Texas longhorns. In the human plot, the women fall for the Texan men, one of whom stands for longhorns (Brian Keith looking ridiculous as an expatriate Scot), and the other who gets committed to Herefords. The woman (Maureen O'Hara) will marry (be mounted by, accept sperm from) one of them, depending on whether the Hereford bull does the deed in the teeth of a Texa blizzard. It is hard to portray how truly weird this film is.
Someone sold the studio (20th CENTURY FOX!! PANAVISION!!) on this weird story, and in the hands of somebody with a sense of humour it might have become brilliant, instead it is just weird (and bad, bad, bad).
Any other examples come to mind?
yours,
Peter T.