Column Chronicles: Listing more of my favorite esoteric films

Listing more of my favorite esoteric films

Frank Cotolo
August 16, 2018

Through the decades of my storied life in and around show business I have always had an esoteric taste for film. I enjoyed many of the popular movies that have made industry history and I don't disparage any movie based on its lack of depth or artistry. It just so happens that some of my favorite films are abstruse works produced and performed by people that never made the mainstream league. Here are a few more of my favorites.

Selling Christchurch (1934)

Australia was not known in the '30s for producing films, so this one went under quickly, which was unfair since it is stupendous. When the city of Christchurch burns to the ground, five local men become new city fathers when they fund the city's rebuilding by selling bonds to rich atheists in New Zealand. However, they have to change the name from Christchurch to No God's Land and that is not a popular idea to Australians.

Rip Collumbrech stars as a mighty landlowner; Denham Stickoid plays an accountant; Fritz Bellamy Wanders plays a crippled clown and Patricia Stone is the love interest. Wally Wallowonder directed a script written by Stolz X. Fishcracker.

The Raincoat Murder (1940)

Stip Sawblade directed the first in his mostly unseen film series of detective stories featuring a private eye named, simply, Plug. The character is introduced in a thunderstorm after a man is killed inside of his raincoat and yet keeps walking. The police are baffled but Plug is sure that he is not dead. Frank Forlorn played Plug in this moderate success. He quit the role when Sawblade directed three more Plug films, featuring Nestor Quill, Phillip Youngborn, Sammy Kaneblend and Don Ron as Plug, respectively.

Hoping For Mr. Feverson (1951)

The first quarter of this movie is filmed upside down. That turned some viewers off but others were elated when it turned right side up and the action truly began, as Rolly Waldo, a champion roller skater, speeds through Chicago while chased by gunmen in a race to get to the hospital where his loved one, Sally Bellyhound, needs a blood transfusion. Director Ally Grapeweed wrote, directed, edited, scored and played a minor role. Sadly, Grapeweed died a day before the film was to be released when he fell from a ladder that he was using to get a child's cat out of a rain gutter.

Oddly enough, most of the movies I like best are so unknown that they didn't make the move to videos or later DVD or even to Netflix or YouTube. If you ever get a chance to see them, though, treat yourself to true underground film experiences.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.