1963’s Dementia13 is a significant film for another reasons.
For one, it’s the mainstream feature film debut of Francis Ford Coppola. (Coppola has said that he directed two softcore films before Dementia13 but they’ve been lost to history.) Both Coppola’s screenplay and his direction were heavily influenced by the early giallo films that were coming out of Italy. One could argue that this is the first American film to pay homage to Mario Bava.
Dementia13 is also the first film on which Coppola ever went overbudget. This film is literally the start of an era.
Coppola himself has been critical of Dementia13. Producer Roger Corman was not happy with the first cut of the film and added a few scenes that took away from Coppola’s pacing. That said, it’s still an atmospheric and creepy forerunner to the American slasher film. The scene in which Launa Anders goes for a swim has been duplicated in numerous other films and it’s still effective in the way that it chops away at the audience’s sense of security. It certainly freaks me out. Of course, I’m not much of a swimmer. I’m a good drowner, though.
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sunday, I will be reviewing the Canadian series, Degrassi High, which aired on CBC and PBS from 1989 to 1991! The series can be streamed on YouTube!
This week, we have a special one-hour episode of Degrassi High!
Episode 1.9 and 1.10 “Sixteen”
(Dir by Kit Hood, originally aired on January 9th, 1990)
Everyone’s turning sixteen at Degrassi High and they’re all dealing with in their own different ways.
Snake and Joey, for instance, are old enough now to take Driver’s Education. Snake is nervous. Joey says that he’s been driving since he was twelve. Both of them end up failing their driving test. Don’t feel bad, guys! It took me a few tries too! Snake actually turns out to be an even worse driver than Joey and even takes out a cardboard family at one point. Thanks to Joey and Snake’s bad driving, their poor driving instructor ends up with two black eyes and wearing a neck brace. Nancy (Arlene Lott) finally get her first storyline in forever as she easily shows up Joey and Snake and gets her license on the first try.
(When I was learning how to drive, the instructor claimed that I had a lazy eye and yelled at me so much that I went home in tears. My mom went to the driving school and raised Hell. I never had to drive with that instructor again.)
Michelle, meanwhile, celebrates her birthday by moving out of her house. Apparently, in Toronto, you only have to be sixteen to leave your parents and live on your own. Michelle moves out because her racist father (Richard Krovsky) is upset with her for dating BLT. Michelle gets her own apartment but she also has to take a job to pay the rent and she soon finds herself exhausted and sleeping through school. Concerned with his physical and academic well-being, BLT sets aside his differences with Michelle’s father and tells him where to find her. Michelle and her dad have a conversation. Michelle is going to continue to live on her own but her father is going to help with the rent. So …. okay. I mean, Michelle left him because she didn’t want to live under her father’s rules and that was understandable because Michelle’s father really is a jerk. But now that she’s on her own, Michelle’s father is going to pay her rent. So, presumably, Michelle is once again in a position where her Dad can make the rules. What if he tells her that he won’t pay her rent if she keeps seeing BLT?
While that’s going on, Lucy shoots a video for LD’s 16th birthday. LD is still in the hospital, battling Leukemia. LD doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s sick or that she’s lost all of her hair. Still, Lucy does tell the Farrell twins about what’s going on. Anyway, there’s a sweet scene in which Lucy, the twins, and Alexa visit LD in the hospital and bring her a birthday cake. It was a nice scene and well-acted by Anais Granofsky (who plays Lucy) and Amanda Cook (who plays LD). This episode was LD’s final appearance on Degrassi High which …. well, that’s kind of ominous, isn’t it?
Finally, Alexa can only watch helplessly as everyone announces that they will be missing her sweet sixteen birthday party. Even her boyfriend, Simon, is going to be busy filming a commercial on Alexa’s birthday. “Fine!” Alexa shouts, after cancelling her part, “I’ll be fifteen forever!” In fact, the cake that Alexa brings to the hospital for LD was actually supposed to be for Alexa’s party. “I’ll just have my mother bake another,” Alexa says. Good for you, Alexa!
This was a bit of an uneven episode. I actually preferred the driving class scenes to all of the birthday drama. Of course, as a longtime Degrassi fan, I know that Joey is going to grow up to be a used car salesman. Watching him struggle to drive made me smile.
Next week: Caitlin discovers that Claude is no good! It’s about time!
(I originally shared this film back in 2011, 2019, 2022, and 2023 — can you believe we’ve been doing this for that long? — but the YouTube upload keeps getting taken down! So, I’m resharing it today!)
For today’s excursion into the world of public domain horror, I offer up the film debut of Francis Ford Coppola. Before Coppola directed the Godfather and Apocalypse Now, he directed a low-budget, black-and-white thriller that was called Dementia 13. In a possible sign of things to come, producer Roger Corman and Coppola ended up disagreeing on the film’s final cut and Corman reportedly brought in director Jack Hill to film and, in some cases, re-film additional scenes.
Regardless of whether the credit should go to Coppola, Corman, or Hill, Dementia 13 is a brutally effective little film that is full of moody photography and which clearly served as an influence on the slasher films that would follow it in the future. Speaking of influence, Dementia 13 itself is obviously influenced by the Italian giallo films that, in 1963, were just now starting to make their way into the drive-ins and grindhouses of America.
Speaking of giallo films, keep an eye out for Patrick Magee, who gave a memorable performance in Lucio Fulci’s The Black Cat. Luana Anders, who plays the duplicitous wife in this film, showed up in just about every other exploitation film made in the 60s and yes, the scene where she’s swimming freaks me out to no end. Other films featuring Luana Anders include Night Tide and Easy Rider, in which she played one of the hippies who unsuccessfully enticed Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper to stay at the commune.
As for Francis Ford Coppola, well, he’s gone on to have quite a career, hasn’t he? It’s been quite a journey from Dementia 13 to Megalopolis!
Through the Shattered Lens 