Jo-Ann Robinson | Through the Shattered Lens

First released in 1970, The Cross and the Switchblade stars Pat Boone as David Wilkerson.

David is a small-town preacher who heads to Brooklyn in the late 50s. Having read an article about the prevalence of violent gangs in New York City, David is determined to make a difference and bring some peace to the city. Why exactly he feels that he can do that, as opposed to someone who is actually from New York and who has some actual experience dealing with gangs, is never really explained. David starts going to drug dens and back alleys and rooftops in the poorest parts of the city. At first, no one takes him seriously but, because he refuses to give up, he does slowly start to win the neighborhood’s respect. He’s even given a place to live so that he’ll no longer have to spend his time sleeping in his car.

(Sleeping in his car? David really didn’t think this out before heading up to New York, did he?)

David becomes obsessed with trying to reach Nicky Cruz (a young Erik Estrada), who is one of the most fearsome member of the Mau Maus gang. The problem is that Nicky really doesn’t want to be reached. He’s been betrayed too many times by the system to trust anyone who claims that they want to help. Nicky is a lot like the character that Michael Wright played in The Principal, basically threatening to cut off any helping hand this offered to him. When one of Nicky’s girlfriends begs for a fix of heroin, Nicky instead sends her to the local church with orders to “take care of” David. When she instead accepts David’s offer of help and gets sober, Nicky becomes even angrier….

The Cross and the Switchblade is an early example of the type of “mainstream” religious film that, as of late, has become popular in America. It may be about religion but it also has a lengthy fight scene and some mild cursing, as if the film wanted to make sure that everyone watching knew that it was a “real movie” as opposed to just being a religious tract. The film was shot on location in Brooklyn, which does bring an authentically gritty feel to certain parts of the film.

Unfortunately, the film itself is done in by a slow pace and a few odd casting choices. One would think that a young Pat Boone would be a good choice for a fresh-faced preacher from Middle America but, instead, Boone gives a rather stiff performance as David Wilkerson and certainly shows none of the charisma that would be necessary to get the film’s gangs to even momentarily put down their weapons and listen to a sermon. If Boone doesn’t show enough emotion, Estrada shows a bit too much. The film was Estrada’s acting debut but, even at the age of 21, Estrada had already developed the Shatneresque acting style that makes him so entertaining in films like Guns and Chupacabra Vs. The Alamo but less credible in films where he actually has to play characters who go through a change or learn a lesson.

In the end, perhaps the most interesting thing about this film is that it was directed by Don Murray, the actor who was nominated for an Oscar for Bus Stop and who played the doomed senator in Advice and Consent. Three years after Cross and the Switchblade, Murray would make quite an impression as the evil Governor Breck in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. More recently, he played Dougie’s surprisingly sympathetic boss in Twin Peaks: The Return. Murray is a great, albeit underrated actor. But, as a director (or at least as the director of this particular film), he struggled to keep the action moving and far too often, he used gimmicks like slow motion and weird camera angles in an attempt to liven up the story.

The Cross and the Switchblade asks the viewer to choose one or the other. Ultimately, it doesn’t make a compelling case for either.

The 1983 film Scalps answers the following question:

What happens when these grad students…

…dig up a sacred Native American burial ground and consider stealing some of the artifacts for themselves?

These grad students right here!

Well, they upset this lion…

…and this woman…

…and this guy, as well!

Needless to say, things don’t end well for anyone involved.

As for why those students were out digging for artifacts in the first place, the blame rests with Prof. Machen. At first, Machen didn’t go with the students. He had to take care of stuff back at the university. When he finally did show up, it was a little bit too late. Prof. Machen is played by an actor named Kirk Alyn, who was the first actor to play Superman back in the 1940s.

In the picture below, you can tell Prof. Machen is an explorer because of the pith helmet that he’s carrying:

Scalps is about 80 minutes long. Most fans of low-budget horror will not be shocked to learn that Scalps is about 60 minutes of filler and 20 minutes of actual action. Seriously, it takes forever for those grad students to actually reach the site of the dig and then, once they start digging, it seems to take even longer for anything to actually happen. Occasionally, we get a quick flash forward of someone getting scalped or an insert of either the lion, the witch, or the warrior looking upset.

The grad students themselves are pretty much interchangeable. As far as the men go, two of them have beards and another likes to drink beer. As far as the women are concerned, two of them are blonde and one of them is slightly less blonde. D.J. (Jo-Ann Robinson) is kind of a hippie and she has a bad feeling about everything.

(Stupid hippies! Bleh!)

What’s odd is that, in the end, the film’s glacial pace actually works to its advantage. Combined with an 80s synthesizer-of-doom score and some ragged but still effectively desolate shots of the desert, the slow pace actually gives Scalps something of a dream-like feel. Like a filmed nightmare, the film is suffused with a feeling of impending doom. Once the killings start, Scalps also makes good use of the slo-mo of doom. Even the most rudimentary of scenes can be scary when they’re filmed in slow motion.

Scalps has been described as being one of the most censored films in cinematic history. If you listen to Fred Olen Ray’s director’s commentary (more on that below), you’ll learn that it was largely censored due to the behavior of an unethical producer. That said, it is a remarkably gory little film. It may take a while for the blood to start flowing but once it starts, it doesn’t stop. Admittedly, some of the gore effects worked better than others. The arrow to the eye didn’t seem authentic. The scalping, on the other hand, seemed far too authentic. As for the decapitation …. well, I’d put that somewhere in the middle.

Scalps is something of a historical oddity, because it was one of the first films to be directed by the incredibly prolific Fred Olen Ray. If you’re lucky enough to find the out-of-print Retromedia DVD, you can listen to a commentary track from Fred. He’s remarkably honest about the film’s flaws and also discusses how he feels that the film’s producers ruined the film by adding random insert shots and flash forwards. (“That’s not us doing that!” Fred says during one insert of the lion.) Fred also points out that he made the mistake of actually shooting some of the night scenes at night. It’s always interesting listening to a veteran director talk about his first film. Since they have nothing to lose by openly discussing the mistakes that they made, their commentaries become a sort of a mini-film school.

Scalps is not a lost masterpiece but it is oddly watchable. Somehow, it manages to be both silly and surprisingly effective at the same time.