When we last left this slightly schizophrenic After Action Report, my Fellow Programs, we, lost in our usual modus operandi and nose for minutia, took a deep dive into the wild and explicitly wooly cinematic world of David F. Friedman and what all led up to his one shot at legitimacy, where he took a page from Phil Karlson and Tom Laughlin to make his own counter-culture anti-hero like Buford Pusser or Billy Jack with his own Johnny Firecloud (1975).
Of course, what we’ve encountered so far, the whole thing comes of as cheap and violent as Friedman’s usual fare, but his film would manage a few surprises and land a few blows against the evils of bigotry and prejudice -- but not for the target demographic you’d expect given the title and our Native American hero.
See, back at the bar, while Firecloud managed to get a few good licks in on Colby’s men defending his grandfather, the odds soon overwhelm him.
But then strangely enough, things take a turn in his favor when Sheriff Jesse (Canary) steps in, breaks up the brawl, and safely escorts the bloodied Firecloud (Mohica) and White Eagle (DeKova) out of the saloon, where he just lets them go. Why? Well, we’ll get to that in a bit.
For now, while taking his apologetic grandfather back to the reservation, the bitter grandson isn't really listening. Here, we get some backstory, on how White Eagle raised his grandson after his parents were killed. And about his birthright, born under the cloud of the first atomic bomb test.
Again, Firecloud isn't listening, ashamed of where he came from and is determined to live in the 'White Man's World.' Now his grandfather refuses to listen. Anyways, once they've reach their destination, Firecloud gets more abandonment grief from Nenya (Littlefeather), an old friend, who went to college but came back to the reservation to help her people as a schoolteacher.
Here, Nenya is confused as to why Firecloud came back here then after serving in Vietnam, to this place he apparently hates so much. When asked why he came back, Firecloud simply states he had nowhere else to go.
The next day, Firecloud gets word that his old girlfriend June (Hart) would like to see him. And perhaps not in the wisest of moves, he heads out to Colby's ranch, her father, alone, to finally find out why she dumped him while he was away.
Meeting up in the barn, they fight, it’s ugly, but there's still a spark between them and the couple do their best to rekindle it by going for a roll in the hay. Unfortunately, when Colby (Meeker) catches them in the act, he orders his men to tie Firecloud to a fence and then proceeds to whip him bloody.
Again,
Firecloud is saved by the timely intervention of the Sheriff. But it's
Firecloud who gets arrested on a trumped-up charge of trespassing,
resulting in a night in jail.
Here, while treating the prisoners' wounds, Jesse confesses that everything Firecloud has said about him was true; but while this confession salves the soul, it does little else as he admits there's nothing he can do to stop Colby.
Seems the rancher found out Jesse was dishonorably discharged from the army for being a homosexual -- caught in the act on the day the conflict ended, and this fear of exposure keeps him turning a blind-eye on Colby's vendetta.
Jesse also reveals it was Colby who intercepted all his correspondence with June while Firecloud was away. And worse yet, turns out June was pregnant at the time but lost their baby. And though Jesse doesn't come right out and say it, it’s heavily implied that it was Firecloud's perceived abandonment and her father's constant abuse that caused her alcoholism, which led to the miscarriage.
With that harsh revelation, Firecloud's problems quickly go from bad to worse when White Eagle finally sobers up, dons his ceremonial gear, and goes to Colby to try and negotiate his son's release.
At first, Colby laughs the old man off, but White Eagle’s nagging persistence soon pisses him off; and pisses him off to the point that he's suddenly in the mood for an old-fashioned lynching!
Here, a horrified Firecloud watches from his jail cell window as his grandfather is stood up in a truck bed and noosed to a tree. One of Jesse’s deputies, JB ( Ledger), tries to stop this, but he's too late as the truck rolls away and the rope snaps taut.
Of course, Colby will have this written off as an accident, despite the deputy's protests to the contrary. (Interestingly, this whole thing is shot like this was as an accident caused by the deputy's attempt to stop it.)
Back in the jail, when Firecloud offers his hand in thanks to JB for trying to save his grandfather, he uses the ruse to knock out the guard and make his escape. Meanwhile, fairly certain that Firecloud will come looking for him, Colby sends out his goons to find him first and put him in the ground.
Figuring he'd hide out at the reservation, they don't find him but do find Nenya at the school. When she refuses to help them, things quickly turn sinister as all six men encircle her, their intentions clear as they start tearing her clothes off, and then the gang rape begins in earnest.
Elsewhere, after Firecloud finishes the customary funeral rights by cremating his father out in the desert, he finds what's left of Nenya, who fingers Colby's men before she dies.
This will be the last straw for Firecloud, who swears a blood oath of vengeance, meaning an overdue day of deadly reckoning with Colby is now at hand.
He starts out by taking care of Colby's goons first, and dispatches them he does most gruesomely. The first, Ned (Kennedy), the one most directly responsible for his grandfather's death, is scalped, who then wanders into a church, bleeding profusely, bringing a profane end to the day's sermon.
The second captured, Wade (Flower), has a bag filled with rattlesnakes tied around his head. Here, Firecloud watches with grim satisfaction as his victim's screams and struggles eventually peter out.
Meanwhile, number three, Grissom (Glass), gets a tomahawk facial, and the fourth, J.B. (Ledger), who initiated the gang rape, is tied up with a lit bundle of dynamite strapped between his legs. Boom.
And lastly, we have Newt (Goff), the guy who appeared to be masturbating while watching a bunch of Indians being massacred in some western on his TV. Weird, weird scene.
Anyway, he winds up buried up to his neck with a mouth full of gravel -- and I'm fairly certain the circling vultures have already plucked out his eyes as Firecloud leaves him to die.
Now, experiencing an extreme amount of perverse pleasure watching Colby squirm as his men are picked off one by one, Jesse makes only a token effort to track down the fugitive-killer.
And that's why he's nowhere near the ranch when Firecloud catches Colby in the barn alone.
And before he knew what hit him, Colby
is strung up by the neck; and as he tries to keep breathing, Firecloud
alternates between whipping him bloody and punching him square in the
junk.
But before he can deal a deathblow, several hired hands stumble upon them and run Firecloud off.
Humiliated, Colby orders Jesse to bring Firecloud in or he'll let his little secret out of the closet. Unsure of what to do, Jesse takes the time to escort June, who has denounced her father, to the nearest bus stop, where she offers to return and do whatever she can to help bring her father to justice; all Jesse has to do is ask. But will he?
Now completely torn, Jesse presses on and tracks his fugitive into the familiar looking desert near Vasquez Rocks (-- ya know, where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn); and when he finally catches up to Firecloud, these two men, trapped in Colby's web of hate, face off for one final showdown.
Now, one of the earliest cinematic examples of the Redman’s Revenge trope can be traced back to the Silent era with the appropriately titled Red Man’s Revenge (1908), a French short, where a Native tracks down and dispatches the villain who robbed a friendly farmer and defiled his daughter. So, not so much a revenge tale but an avenging one. But that would change dramatically with Alan Crosland’s Massacre (1934), which would pretty much set the template for all that followed.
“Despite the sensational sounding title and the plentiful action contained within, Massacre was not about an out and out battle between the Indians and the white man, but how the white man was exploiting the Indian and leaving them to rot away into nothing,” said Danny Read (precode.com, November 25, 2013). And, “Surprisingly, the film also takes on how missionaries had been trying to destroy the Indian’s history and traditions as well.”
Wrapping around all of that we have the tale of Joe Thunderhorse (Richard Barthelmess), who had denounced his heritage by exploiting it for fame and fortune in several entertainment ventures.
Making his way home for the funeral of his father, Black Pony, the chief of the local tribe, Thunderhorse sees the deplorable conditions of life on the reservation and the exploitation of the people by the entrenched corruption of the bilking Indian Agent (Sidney “Charlie Chan” Toler) and a corrupt Sheriff (Charles “Ming the Merciless” Middleton).
Teaming up with the college educated Lydia (Ann Dvorak), who, unlike our hero, returned to the reservation to help her people, Thunderhorse tries to put a stop to this legally with the "White-Man's Law.” But he’s thwarted at every turn. And as things escalate even further, his sister, Jennie (Agnes Narcha), is brutalized and branded by the bad guys.
This would prove the last straw for Thunderhorse, who reclaims his birthright and exacts a bloody, pre-code revenge. And while Friedman and Castleman’s Johnny Firecloud could kinda / sorta be considered a stealth remake of Massacre, we definitely don’t get the same resolution as the fugitive Thunderhorse makes his way to Washington D.C., pleads his case, and wins his day in court and the promised massacre is averted.
Of course, Friedman would stuff his version with the vengeful, anti-hero elements of Buford Pusser and Billy Jack, and sprinkle in the usual healthy titillating dose of bare boobs and naked rumps. And while the defilement of Jennie is strictly implied in Massacre, the gang rape of Nenya in Johnny Firecloud is shamefully explicit.
“This scene could have been a powerful indictment in more capable hands for a movie that was gunning for a serious look at the Native American plight during this time period,” noted Cool Ass Cinema (May 21, 2012).
“Instead we get delirious camerawork that zips and zooms over a child scribbled assemblage of the alphabet, a poster that says ‘See the scenic wonders of your United States’ and closes out on a close up of Abraham Lincoln. It's still a disturbing sequence, embracing the trashiness of the whole affair captured by a cameraman who may or not have put back a few beers prior to shooting it.”
According to the commentary track on the Something Weird Video’s release of Johnny Firecloud, that’s not too far north from the truth.
“I directed the scene,” admitted Friedman. “It was shot around four in the morning and Bill (Castleman, the film’s director), well, he’d had it.” As for those bizarre school room inserts intercut into the assault, “I had (cinematographer) Peter Good shoot this other stuff so I could cut them in and get an R-rating on the thing.”
Of course, stunt-casting Sacheen Littlefeather in the role of Nenya was also an attempt to cash-in on her lingering notoriety at the 1973 Academy Awards ceremony, where Marlon Brando sent her to refuse the award won for his role in The Godfather (1972).
(L-R) Roger Moore, Liv Ullman and Sacheen Littlefeather.
His goal was to draw attention to the American Indian Movement's current efforts at the stand-off / siege at Wounded Knee (February through May, 1973) and to protest Hollywood’s propagating the mistreatment of Native Americans in film, which was reprinted in its entirety as an op-ed piece for The New York Times (March 30, 1973) after Littlefeather was forced to improvise his 15 page manifesto due to time constraints to smattering of titters and applause:
“The motion picture community has been as responsible as any for degrading the Indian and making a mockery of his character, describing him as savage, hostile and evil … Recently there have been a few faltering steps to correct this situation, but too faltering and too few, so I, as a member in this profession, do not feel that I can as a citizen of the United States accept an award here tonight.”
Now, Brando’s sentiments might have been genuine, but his chosen representative was not. In fact, it only added another sad chapter in the Hollywood duplicity he was railing against.
When it was announced shortly before her death in 2022 that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would offer a formal apology for Littlefeather’s treatment that fateful night, not long after it was revealed that Littlefeather had led a tangled life of lies -- at least according to her sisters.
The Oakland Tribune (January 14, 1971).
Over the years Littlefeather laid a claim to White Mountain Apache heritage, but she was born Marie Louise Cruz in Salinas, California, to Manuel Ybarra Cruz (Hispanic) and Geraldine Barnitz (Caucasian). Neither of which had any ties to any Native American nations. She also had two sisters, Rosalind Cruz and Trudy Cruz-Orlandi.
“It’s a lie,” Orlandi told Jacqueline Keeler (The San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 2022). “My father was who he was. His family came from Mexico. And my dad was born in Oxnard.”
Sister Rosalind echoed the sentiment, telling Keeler, “It is a fraud. It’s disgusting to the heritage of the tribal people. And it’s just … insulting to my parents.” The sisters would also assert that Littlefeather’s oft-told stories about their violent and impoverished upbringing were completely false.
“My father was deaf and he had lost his hearing at nine years old through meningitis,” said Rosalind Cruz. “He was born into poverty. His father, George Cruz, was an alcoholic who was violent and used to beat him. And he was passed to foster homes and family. But my sister Sacheen took what happened to him [and made it her own backstory].”
Jonathan Frid and (regional finalist) Christine Domaniecki.
“I mean, you’re not gonna be a
Mexican American princess,” Orlandi said of her sister’s fraudulent
identity. “You’re gonna be an American Indian princess. It was more
prestigious to be an American Indian than it was to be Hispanic in her
mind.”
While growing up, Marie
Cruz worked as a model but held notions of becoming an actress, and
would eventually receive a full scholarship to study acting at San
Francisco's American Conservatory Theater.
The Daily News (May 15, 1971).
After appearing in several
commercials, she got her SAG card. And in 1970, made her showbiz debut
by winning the Miss American Vampire contest held by Dan Curtis to help
promote House of Dark Shadows (1970), the feature film version of his
gothic daytime soap opera.
The
original prize for winning was to receive a walk on role on the show
but this never happened -- most likely due to the show being canceled
early in 1971. As a consolation prize, she was offered a role in The
Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971) but nothing came of that either.
According to the IMDB, she did manage a few roles as an extra in the underrated, Walter Matthau-led police procedural The
Laughing Policeman (1973) and the Italian thriller Counselor at Crime
(alias Il consigliori, 1973).
According to the Keeler article, Cruz began identifying as an Apache when she was a student at San Jose State in the late 1960s, and on January 14, 1971, the Oakland Tribune published a photo that identified her as Sacheen Littlefeather.
In September, 1972, in his column for the Chronicle, Herb Caen noted, “Sacheen Littlefeather, the Bay Area Indian Princess, and nine other tribal beauties are sore at Hugh Hefner. Playboy ordered pictures of them, riding horseback nude in Woodside and other beauty spots, and then Hefner rejected the shots as ‘not erotic enough.’”
When asked why she participated, Littlefeather said, “Well, everybody says black is beautiful -- we wanted to show that red is, too.” There were other attempts to advance her career, too, including one documented case where she crashed her way into a neighboring house warming party for Francis Ford Coppola with her portfolio in tow.
Meanwhile, as she cultivated her Native identity, Littlefeather also started down the road of activism. Her claims of participating in the occupation of Alcatraz in 1969 have long been in dispute, but she did head a local affirmative action committee for Native Americans in the Bay area, who successfully campaigned for Stanford University to remove their offensive Indian-themed mascot.
It was Coppola, who was about to start filming The Godfather, who first introduced her to Brando, knowing he was interested in the plight of Native Americans, too.
“Miss Littlefeather said she had known Brando for almost a year before the Oscar incident,” reported Bob Thomas (Associated Press, September 3, 1974). “He displayed a fatherly attitude toward her [and] aided her during a serious illness.” And according to Thomas, Brando selected Littlefeather for his Oscar mission on a whim.
“People were most cruel and unjust to me afterwards,” Littlefeather told Thomas. “They reacted out of ignorance … I am not a militant. I am not a radical. I am simply a person who is trying to do what I can to prevent racial hatred.”
Actor Michael Caine, co-host of the evening’s ceremonies, and nominated for the same award for his performance in Sleuth (1972), would criticize not Littefeather but Brando for "letting some poor little Indian girl take the boos" instead of "[standing] up and [doing] it himself.” Fellow actor John Wayne would echo this statement, saying Brando “should’ve showed up himself to say what he had to say.”
John Wayne.
Littlefeather would get a lot of political and social mileage out of her oft told tale of nearly being assaulted by an outraged Wayne at the ceremony over the decades since. “During my presentation, he was coming towards me to forcibly take me off the stage, and he had to be restrained by six security men to prevent him from doing so,” Littlefeather told Steve Rose (The Guardian, June 3, 2021). But this, too, proved to be a fabrication.
And while Wayne was no saint, and deserves all the grief he still gets over that notoriously racist Playboy interview (May, 1971), here he was unjustly accused, as the incident was thoroughly debunked by Farran Smith Nehme (Self-Styled Siren, August 19, 2022). (You can read the whole thing, but you have to be a paid subscriber.)
Playboy Magazine (October, 1973).
Less than six months after her abbreviated appearance at the Oscars, Littlefeather got her second chance with Hefner, who had her posing for a nude pictorial for his October, 1973, edition of Playboy. But neither that or her Brando stunt did much to advance her acting career.
Laughlin offered her a role in The Trial of Billy Jack (1974), and our old friend Charles Pierce cast her in Winterhawk (1975) the same year she was cast in Johnny Firecloud. She would have one more uncredited part in David Leeds’ Shoot the Sun Down (1978) before abandoning her career, spending the rest of her life campaigning for Native causes and teaching holistic principles.
But Littlefeather never forgave Hollywood for her treatment after the incident, saying she was blacklisted over it, which led to that apology from the Academy nearly 50 years later. The event was a celebration of Native culture, and during the ceremony, as Littlefeather told her story, she admitted to spending nearly a year in a mental hospital after an attempted suicide back in 1970 and revealed she was a diagnosed schizophrenic, which honestly sheds some light on a few things.
“Sacheen did not like herself,” said Orlandi (Keeler, 2022). “She didn’t like being Mexican. So, yes, it was better for her that way to play someone else. The best way that I could think of summing up my sister is that she created a fantasy. She lived in a fantasy, and she died in a fantasy.”
Littlefeather would pass away on October 2, 2022. And while I think her efforts to identify as a Native American were a means to an end, both mentally and professionally, though disingenuous, I do believe, like she said, she was only trying to do some good.
Sadly, when not counting the pivotal rape / murder scene, Littlefeather’s total screen-time in Johnny Firecloud was probably less than a minute. As for the rest, well, Second Unit A.D. Friedman seemed less interested in what she had to say and was more interested in focusing on her pendulous breast implants.
As
for the rest of the cast, for a film sold as a screed against racism,
aside from Johnny, White Eagle and Nenya, I’m hard pressed to recall any
other Native characters in the film -- let alone Native actors playing
them; Victor Mohica was of Puerto Rican descent, and Frank DeKova was
Italian.The only thing that immediately springs to mind is a brief dolly
through the squalor of the reservation, which eventually settles on a
decal on a dislodged truck bumper; and that was about as close as we got to
any actual overt social commentary in the entire film.
Thus, on the Native American front, Friedman, Castleman and Denmark make no great strides and the film ultimately sputters and fails, falling into the same old genre trappings. The whole revenge angle is stretched thin because, frankly, after your lover has been abused and brow-beaten into miscarrying your child, your grandfather has been humiliated and lynched, and your best friend has been brutally raped and murdered, and then, and only then, after all of that sequentially happens, do you take the law into your own hands for a little biblical payback, as a viewer, Fellow Programs, you might have a little trouble rooting for the guy because you have to wonder out loud -- What the hell took you so damn long?
Editor’s Note: For the record, I have this same justification problem with almost all revenge flicks of this ilk. Seriously, Mr. Kersey, did you have to wait until your new girlfriend died again, again, before engaging in another Death Wish? End note.
Known mostly for episodic TV, Mohica had appeared in Sean S. Cunningham’s Kinsey-inspired sex-mockumentary Together (1971) with Marilyn Chambers, and the threadbare western Showdown (1973). He's actually pretty good in the role of Johnny Firecloud, and carries the film with apparent ease in spite of all the obstacles the script puts in his way.
DeKova, meanwhile, had been in the business for decades, but I will always remember him for his role as Chief Wild Eagle in F-Troop and as the villain in Roger Corman’s Teenage Caveman (1958).
But despite its shortcomings, which are many, Johnny Firecloud still almost succeeds as an offbeat gem on the evils of bigotry -- but just not in the way you would think. No, where the film’s sympathies effectively lie are in the homophobic aspects centered on Sheriff Jesse. The whole film has a fairly hefty homoerotic charge coursing though it just below the surface (-- Firecloud always seems to have his shirt off and is constantly greased up; or when Jesse is tending to his wounds while he's handcuffed to the bed in the jail cell). Whether this was intended or not, well, who can say.
According to that commentary track, Friedman said Ralph Meeker wanted to play the Sheriff but would end up playing the vile Colby instead. Meeker is one of those guys who keep turning up in the damndest of places. He played a great Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly (1955). And he was equally great as one of the doomed men destined for the firing squad in Paths of Glory (1957).
The man also appeared in a ton of schlock in things ranging from The Food of the Gods (1976) to The Alpha Incident (1978), and a couple of TV movies with The Night Stalker (1972) and The Dead Won’t Die (1975). But the role of Jesse ultimately went to David Canary, and the film is better for it.
Before taking on the role of Adam Chandler in the daytime soap All My Children, Canary is probably best remembered for playing Candy Canaday on Bonanza, replacing Pernell Roberts when he left the show, as the ranch foreman for the Ponderosa. He also had a few parts in feature films like Hombre (1967), The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1967) and Shark’s Treasure (1975), where he played a similar effeminate character.
Here, while his script fails miserably on the combating racism front, Denmark manages a few tweaks to really muddy the waters on the Jesse character, but it's Canary’s understated performance that really helped to elevate things and added some nuance to an otherwise blunt narrative.
And then there's that abortive ending.
Most people didn’t like it because the vile Colby is still breathing when the end credits roll. As for myself, though I found it a bit anticlimactic, I didn’t necessarily hate how the film ended, but … But. But. But. But…
"There are a moment or two where a flicker of a political statement arises in Johnny Firecloud, but then descends the waves of bigotry and moral perversion,” noted Cool Ass Cinema. “In its slight defense, the ending is surprising in its philosophical civility, when it's expected to go balls-out, topping its bloody banana split with a viscera flavored cherry.”
Only it didn’t.
See, after one last heated verbal exchange, Jesse, feeling guilty and culpable, winds up just letting Johnny go. No gun play. No tomahawks. No punches. Nothing. Just a simple parting of ways.
Now, there's a lot left to your own interpretations as these two oppressed men shake hands and part, and the fugitive Firecloud disappears into the mountains; but I'm fairly certain that Jesse is gonna come out of the closet and call in the Feds (-- like Thunderhorse did), and then turn evidence on Colby for all the wrong he's done.
And yes, Colby’s still alive, but he's been beaten and humiliated by an Indian! A fate worse than death to him. Also, his only child has left and disavowed him, and his cronies are all dead, leaving him to take all the heat when the authorities come a-knocking; so his suffering is just beginning.
And so, in the end, Johnny will probably get one more lingering death to notch on his tomahawk. Maybe. Because with every cynical thing we've seen so far, probably not. Which leaves us with the distinct possibility that this massacre was all for nothing. So nobody wins. Uhm … Yay?
For the grue FX for that massacre, the centerpiece of this mixed-up morality play, Friedman borrowed Joe Blasco from the Ilsa: She-Wolf of the S.S. (1971) production. His other film credits included The Touch of Satan (1971), Garden of the Dead (1972) and Track of the Moon Beast (1976). Blasco also had a hand making the sexually transmitted slugs in They Came from Within (alias Shivers, 1975) and the special makeups in Rabid (1977) for David Cronenberg.
Beyond that, for a guy whose credits are dominated by situational comedies, Blasco sure knew how to tear up a body and slather on the blood. But as I mentioned earlier, it might’ve been too little, too late, as the film took its own sweet time to get there.
Production began (and finished) in August, 1974, filming around Piru, California, and in the deserts of New Mexico -- along with a few pickups in the familiar environs of Vasquez Rocks. The total budget was around $220,000, over half of which came from a deal struck with 20th Century Fox for foreign distribution, meaning, according to Friedman, the film was already well in the black before the cameras even rolled.
The film would be shot in 35mm by Good with a Panavision camera, a rare luxury for Entertainment Ventures. Good came from the world of nature documentaries, who would later be involved with the Faces of Death franchise, shooting Faces of Death II (1981), Faces of Death III (1985), The Worst of Faces of Death (1987), and Faces of Death IV (1990). And Johnny Firecloud would hit theaters in January of 1975.
The Tucson Citizen (January 13, 1975).
“Like Billy Jack, Johnny Firecloud suffers from an extreme case of political tunnel vision; all Indians are noble, all white people are pigs, and the two don’t mix well,” reported Glenn Garvin for The Delta Democrat Times (November 19, 1975). “There’s lots of violence, including seven murders, one rape, and countless beatings administered by New Mexico townsfolk, who don’t seem to have much else to do.”
Meanwhile, Scott Beaven of The Albuquerque Journal (July 25, 1975) felt, “This film is designed to turn its audience into self-righteous murderers … Johnny Firecloud asks to be taken as a warning -- mess around with Indians and this is what is going to happen to you -- but its serious aspirations are exploded by its overt sadism, not to mention by the acting, direction and cinematography, all of which are atrocious. It is reprehensible because it takes an atmosphere of racism and discrimination and uses it to preach more hate. And hate stories, black, white, red or neutral, don’t get us anywhere."
The El Paso Times (October 9, 1975).
Despite the critical drubbing (-- in its defense, I was only able to find a grand total of two vintage reviews), “We did very well with that picture,” said Friedman (McCarty, 1995). “We had 150 prints made up, which was unheard of for an exploitation film. Fox distributed it overseas. It was the most expensive movie I ever made. It cost about $200,000, and it made that much back in TV syndication alone.”
According to everything I’ve read and heard, Friedman enjoyed nearly every aspect of making Johnny Firecloud -- especially playing with the Panavision camera. It was easily the largest budget for any EVI production and it shows on the screen, most obviously in the quality of the veteran cast members and the expansive CinemaScope.
But in the end, he felt it was just too much work for the profit it showed and felt the cheaper sexploitation features were easier to make and made just as much money once you factored in the costs. And so, Johnny Firecloud would be Friedman’s first, last and only shot at legitimacy.
But with the raincoat crowd now taking its business elsewhere, in order to stay competitive, EVI would venture into the world of hardcore, producing and distributing A Chorus Call (1978), an erotic rip-off of the Broadway musical A Chorus Line, and Seven into Snowy (1978), which I don’t think I need to explain any further.
“When the industry went hardcore, I said this was going to be the end of a long and glorious business,” said Friedman (McCarty, 1995). “Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t have any moral compunctions against hardcore. I just didn’t like doing it for one basic reason: It was bad show business. The whole secret to exploitation and our successful little racket was the carnival tease. With hardcore, they give away the third act the minute the curtain is raised; and after you’ve seen the guy ejaculate and the girl fellate him, what else can you do?”
Other economic factors were also coming into play, like the advent of home video. Said Friedman (ibid), “In addition, X-rated video put X-rated theaters out of business. There are practically none left. So, those two things together killed the market for my type of film -- which sells the sizzle not the steak. Hardcore sells the steak.”
Lewis and Friedman.
After this brief dip into hardcore, Friedman and Entertainment Ventures seriously cut back on production. And after the release of Blonde Heat and the Case of the Maltese Dildo (1985), Friedman would semi-retire. And while he kept an office in Hollywood, Friedman spent most of his time back in Alabama, briefly resurfacing in the aughts with his old pal Lewis for a trio of belated sequels: Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat (2002), 2001 Maniacs (2005), and 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010).
Friedman would then cap off his career by producing the highly recommended documentary, That’s Exploitation (2013), which showed you “the untold story of American cinema’s gloriously sordid cinematic past.” Friedman also wrote his autobiography, A Youth in Babylon (1990), which I was finally able to get my hands on for less than $50. I’d been looking for a while since it was long out of print and went for a ton of money. I highly recommend it, too, so keep your eyes peeled.
“I am probably guilty of promulgating more of the most disgusting garbage on the American public than anyone has ever done,” said Friedman (Sinema: Pornographic Films and the People Who Make Them, 1974), and we should all be thankful for that.
If you want to see Johnny Firecloud, it's available through Something Weird Video. Saddled on a double-feature disc with the aptly titled Bummer!, which is the cinematic equivalent of chewing on a piece of aluminum foil, SWV has it jammed-packed with the usual bonus material, trailers, shorts, and exploitation art that’s all just waiting to be cued up.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune (July 29, 1975).
That commentary track, moderated by Mike Vraney and Frank Henenlotter, is lively and informative on Friedman’s career but might prove frustrating as the conversation, at Henenlotter’s insistence, kept circling back to Ilsa: She-Wolf of the S.S. (So, say, if you’re trying to write an after-action report on Johnny Firecloud, it's a bit of a wash.)
There was also a bit of controversy when the 20th Century Fox logo and fanfare opened the movie on the disc, meaning the release might’ve been the tamer, International Fox cut of the film by mistake -- despite Vraney’s assurances to the contrary. Still, Friedman insisted some of the skin-shots were missing, and the violent rampage appears to have been altered slightly or abruptly abbreviated in spots.
Whatever version you see, Johnny Firecloud almost succeeds as an offbeat gem on the evils of bigotry. It’s probably nothing you haven't seen before in a standard revenge flick, but, with all due respect to Mr. Friedman, the film is a lot better than it probably should’ve been once you consider who was behind it. Faint praise? Well, just try and sit through Bummer! and you'll see what I mean.
It's rare when a feature can escape the gravity of its schlocky trappings and achieve an orbit far beyond its limitations. Johnny Firecloud's ambitions probably weren't all that high, but they were definitely met and exceeded despite this failure to launch properly.
Originally posted on November 30, 2007, at 3B Theater.
Johnny
Firecloud (1975) Entertainment Ventures (EVI) :: 20th Century Fox / P:
David F. Friedman, Peter B. Good, Anton Wickremasinghe, William Allen
Castleman / AP: Jean Jacques Berthelot / D: William Allen Castleman / W:
Wilton Denmark / C: Peter B. Good / E: Neal Chastain / M: William Loose
/ S: Victor Mohica, Ralph Meeker, David Canary, Frank DeKova, Christina
Hart, Sacheen Littlefeather, Jason Ledger, John F. Goff, Richard
Kennedy, George 'Buck' Flower, Wayne Storm, Elliott Lindsey
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