SHOCK CINEMA
HOME PAGE
SUBSCRIPTIONS
AND BACK
ISSUES
FILM REVIEW
ARCHIVE
Hundreds of
Reviews from
Past Issues!
AD RATES
MAGAZINE
REVIEW INDEX

An A-Z List of
SC Print Reviews
SHOCK CINEMA
FACEBOOK
PAGE
SHOCK CINEMA
INSTAGRAM
PAGE
MISTER KEYES
At the Flicks
and Shit
SHOCK CINEMA
Film Favorites
SHOCKING
LINKS

Our Favorite Sites
'Chirashi'
MOVIE POSTERS

A Gallery of
Japanese
Film Posters

"Some of the 
best bizarre
film commentary
going... with sharp,
no-nonsense
verdicts."
Manohla Dargis,
The Village Voice
 
"One of the few 
review zines you
can actually read
and learn from...
You need this."
Joe Bob Briggs 
 
"Whenever you 
see a film critic,
pick up a brick and
throw it at him...
No great damage
can be done
to his head."
Jonas Mekas 

 

 Need more info?
 E-mail us at:

 shockcin@aol.com



































NO MORE EXCUSES (1968).

Following the 1966 underground success of CHAFED ELBOWS, and before his (comparatively) mainstream trio of PUTNEY SWOPE, POUND and GREASER'S PALACE, director Robert Downey [a prince] and ELBOWS-editor Robert Soukis concocted this 46-minute cinematic goulash, which finally emerged from decades of obscurity thanks to The Criterion Collection, with a newly-restored print struck from the film's only remaining 16mm copy. Like most of Downey's early, most personal efforts, it's a deliriously irreverent blend of politics, sex, humor, and assorted weirdness that bounces crazily from one segment to another. Opening with a reverse-chronological montage of American warfare -- from (then-current) Vietnam back to the Civil War -- the filmmakers visit Manhattan singles bars for impromptu conversations with their horny clientele (both male and female) about one-night-stands and the modern-day preference for sex over love; there's crude reenactment of (a bald) President James Garfield's assassination by Charles Guiteau, plus professional hoaxer Alan Abel portrays the uptight spokesman for the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (S.I.N.A.), whose goal is to make all animals wear clothes and spouts absurdities like "Who should [a dog] be denied the right to walk down the street in a tuxedo at night?" [Note: Abel created this faux-organization back in 1959, with then-unknown Buck Henry as its spokesperson, and managed to prank several news outlets including THE TODAY SHOW and THE CBS EVENING NEWS. Some of the most amusing moments involve a wounded Union soldier, Private Thompson (played by Downey himself), who escapes from the battlefield and suddenly finds himself in 20th Century New York City -- confused and wandering the crowded city streets in his old-timey uniform (complete with rifle!), checking out the subway, getting picked up by a biker, and finally getting tossed out of Yankee Stadium after wandering onto the field, in the middle of an actual game! And for more prurient thrills, a lecherous stalker (mustached Don Calfa, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) comically busts into a fat chick's apartment, strips her on the floor and they make love -- only to end up interviewed (mid-coitus) for the 6 o'clock news, and with Calfa rudely kicked out of bed in favor of a randy chimp, along with (unlicensed?) use of THE MONKEES theme song. Plus in the most prescient twist, Calfa's pervert turns out to be a Priest! Along with photography by Stan Warnow (another ELBOWS alumnus, who worked as an editor on WOODSTOCK and HAIR) and secondary camerawork by Sheldon Rochlin (future director of indie fare like DOPE and SIGNALS THROUGH THE FLAMES), NO MORE EXCUSES achieves a near-perfect mix for late-'60s underground fare -- it's topical, radical, disjointed, often extremely silly, and also mercifully brief.

© 2013 by Steven Puchalski.