When in the Desert...

Hello Faithful LWCMD Readers!

Tomorrow, I head off for my annual sojourn to the CA oasis, Palm Springs. PS is lovely- an old Hollywood colony sitting in the middle of a desert with enough palm trees and pools to make you forget the heat... and the snakes.


Everytime I fly into Sonny Bono International Airport and see the mountainous desert spread out beneath me, I can't help but think of my favorite California desert movie, Eegah (1962).

The early Sixties were great for terrible movies. With the sinking of the studio system and a loosening of the grip of the dreaded Production Code, small, independent movie makers were able to slip into the industry with cheap action, sex and romance, and horror movies that appealed to the younger drive-in movie set. Producer/director/song-writer Arch Hall, Sr. had success with a schlock flick called The Choppers (1961) and decided to make his next movie a vehicle for his Elvis-wannabe son Arch Jr. How Eegah was chosen to be a vehicle for anybody is a mystery.

Eegah (with an exclamation point if you're nasty) is basically King Kong if King Kong was a prehistoric caveman (played by recognizably tall actor, Richard Kiel) living in a cave in the California desert between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. Roxy (brunette Eegah-bait, Marilyn Manning) nearly runs over a "monster" as she drives to a party in the middle of the night, and her story intrigues her scientist father Robert (Arch Hall Sr. casting himself in a pith helmet).

When Daddy disappears in the desert, Roxy and her boyfriend Tom (Junior) take a dune buggy to try and find him, only to find out that Eegah is sick of all these visitors. After some big rock-throwing, Eegah kidnaps Roxy and hauls her off to his cave for some cave-drawing and heavy-petting- all under the overly watchful eye of Dad.

Of course Roxy and Popsy escape and make it back to civilization, and of course Eegah follows his brown-haired girl back to town, ruining a perfectly groovy pool party. Will Eegah get the girl? Will Roxy wear another bikini? Will they find yet another opportunity to shoehorn in a pop song written by Arch, Sr.? This film has been rightly called one of the worst ever made, but one look at the trailer, and you know that it is going to be a laugh-filled riot.

So while I'm sunning it up in Palm Springs, turn on Eegah (it's available on Youtube) and you can feel like you're by the pool with me... sans caveman.