It begins as a gritty urban thriller, veers off into teen rock ‘n’ roll romance film (Ron Haydock provides some undistinguished musical numbers), stirs in a bit of unfunny comedy before finally emerging as a spoof of the seemingly unspoofable Batman, itself a parody. In fact, Rat Pfink a Boo Boo never makes up its mind what it wants to be. The Batman television series began airing in the States in January 1966, just weeks after Steckler started work on Murder a Go-Go (or The Depraved) and Steckler seems to have been inspired enough by news of its impending broadcast for him to abandon what looks like a grittier, more adult film in favour of the bizarre hybrid we know today. ![]() You can almost see the moment where Steckler changed his mind about Murder a Go-Go and took off in a completely different direction (in case you miss it, the black and white-shot film’s tinting changes from blue and sepia to a lurid pink at the appropriate moment). Which is all very cute and all, but it’s left audiences bewildered by the nonsensical title ever since. He maintained that the title was a deliberate choice, inspired by his young daughter who, on a visit to the set, excitedly exclaimed “Rat Pfink a Boo Boo!” when she saw the two main characters. Where do the costumes come from? Have they done this sort of thing before? If so, for how long? While you’re pondering those and many other questions, out heroes set off on their Rat-cycle and sidecar combo to rescue Cee Bee, encountering “Kogar the Ape” (an uncredited Bob Burns) along the way before being rewarded with a public parade.įirst things first, that title… The legend has it that the titles was meant to be the more sensible (sort of…) Rat Pfink & Boo Boo but that a mistake by titles designer Tom Scherman rendered the ampersand as an “a.” Steckler, however, had a different story to tell. At no point prior to this transformation is it even hinted that these two had alter egos and the sudden tonal shift is positively head-spinning. After 40 minutes or so of the gang stalking Cee Bee before they kidnap her, Lord and his friend Titus Twimbly ( Titus Moede) enter a cupboard and emerge as the costumed crime fighters Rat Pfink and Boo Boo. the so-called “Chain Gang,” Linc ( George Caldwell), Hammer ( Mike Kannon) and Benjie ( James Bowie), abduct Cee Bee Beaumont ( Carolyn Brandt), the girlfriend of rock star Lonnie Lord ( Ron Haydock, credited as Vin Saxon) who likes to wander the streets of Los Angeles with guitar in hand in case anyone wants to hear one of his underwhelming ditties. It begins as a sort of psycho-thriller, with a trio of cackling hoodlums chasing a woman around the back alleys before murdering her, a surprisingly atmospheric sequence at times. The sudden change in tone 40 minutes in suggests that far from anticipating Batman, Steckler was rapidly responding to it, tacking camp superhero silliness onto already shot footage of a much sleazier nature. ![]() But it became something very different as production ground on. The peculiarly titled Rat Pfink a Boo Boo seems to have begun life in December 1965 as a crime thriller, announced in Variety as Murder a Go-Go (hence its 1965 copyright date), though it’s also been suggested that it began life under the title The Depraved ( Variety makes no mention of a Steckler film of this title). No-budget auteur Ray Dennis Steckler turned his attentions to the superhero film, seemingly getting in ahead of the television series Batman (1966-1968).
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