You know, I was always a hound for publicity. They were doing the Academy Awards and Brando was up for it. Well, I knew him from The Wild One, I knew he was going to get it (for On the Waterfront), so I was getting dressed up for it and I was going to go up there and get it before he got there, but some guy from Western Costume who was dressing me up talked me out of it.

- Psychotronic Video magazine #6, Summer 1990; interview by Michael Murphy and Johnny Legend, research by Michael J. Weldon

Congratulations to all of tonight’s Oscar winners!

Today, the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Stanley Kubrick, we pay tribute to him by revisiting the two films of his in which Timothy appears. First up is The Killing (1956), in which hipster sharpshooter Nikki Arcane assassinates a racehorse as part of an intricate racetrack robbery scheme.

Secondly, and finally, doomed French World War I soldier Pvt. Maurice Ferol is unjustly court-martialed for desertion in Paths of Glory (1957).

In an unpublished 2003 interview with Harvey Chartrand, Tim’s younger brother George sheds an interesting light on Tim’s relationship with Kubrick:

One day, Timmy was out in the backyard, brushing his horse, and I got a call from Stanley Kubrick, who was on the set of Spartacus. Timmy says, “You talk to him, George. Tell him I’ll be right there.” So I made small talk with Kubrick, figuring that Timmy was on his way from the backyard to take the phone call. I don’t know what the call was about, because Timmy wasn’t in Spartacus. Well, Timmy never got to the phone. He stayed out there, brushing his horse. I don’t know what that was all about. Timmy was a little erratic at times. I think if Timmy hadn’t been quite so extreme in some of his efforts to get publicity for himself, he would have been in other Kubrick pictures after Paths of Glory. (Carey was later considered for a small part in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

We can only dream about the work Tim and Kubrick might have accomplished together in later years, and about further Kubrick projects had he lived longer to share his gifts with us. For now, let’s just be grateful these two eccentric storytelling geniuses got a chance to work together at all. We are the fortunate benefactors of their collaborations.

There was more going on than issues of length and shot selection. A story [John] Cassavetes told about how his friend Tim Carey had spent eight years editing a film [The World's Greatest Sinner] describes his own feelings as well.

He probably doesn’t want to stop, because when he stops then he really is going to stop. When he stops he’ll face the bills that he has to pay. When he stops he’ll have to become a father again to seven [sic] children. When he stops he’ll have to pay attention to his wife. When he stops he’ll have to be a human being and to be an artist really is to be a freak, in the greatest sense of the word. You’re not interested in living but you’re interested in a substitute life, which is what it means to be an artist.

- Ray Carney, Cassavetes on Cassavetes (Faber and Faber Ltd., 2001)

Cassavetes directing Tim and Seymour Cassel, Minnie and Moskowitz (1971)

Setting up an appointment with Carey was tricky. He is, for one thing, a recluse. On the other hand, as a benched performer, he craves attention. Finally, Romeo Carey, the actor’s [then] 32-year-old filmmaker son, smoothed the path for a series of encounters at the modest Carey family bungalow in the L.A. suburb of El Monte, not far from the Santa Anita racetrack. The neighborhood, quiet and working class, seemed far in psychic miles from Hollywood.

I’ll say it was a gas meeting Carey and get that out of the way. The character and the actor meshed seamlessly, and he responded to my interest like somebody who’d been in solitary and couldn’t stop talking once he started. If he was often over-the-top in his comments, he also seemed painfully insecure, even as his long index finger jabbed the air. He struck me as a man of high ideals, however curious—at once a show-off and a fragile dreamer. He answered my questions perched on a mock throne in his cluttered backyard studio, once again wearing his glittery Sinner costume. To add to the general bizarrerie, Romeo Carey filmed portions of the proceedings for a documentary-in-progress.

- Grover Lewis, “Cracked Actor”, Film Comment Jan/Feb 2004; interview conducted in 1992

Timothy’s El Monte studio, from Dead Flowers (Vox Populi/Participant Press, 2011)

Carey’s true nature, belying his odious on-screen behavior, came out in the easygoing way he talked about the many leads he’s worked with, actors who’ve routinely – and literally – kicked him around. He was given the cold shoulder by Robert Ryan on Alaska Seas (1954), “cursed and stomped on” by Richard Widmark during The Last Wagon (1956), and kicked in the ribs by Karl Malden during the filming of Marlon Brando‘s One-Eyed Jacks (1961) – to name only a few instances! When asked to reflect on these incidents, a sad fondness crept into Carey’s voice as he had nothing but praise for the many actors whose resentfulness instilled in him a real martyrdom rather than bitterness: “I’ve been fired from several shows. I’m not proud of it, but I do hold the all-time record.”

- Ara Corbett, “Rebels With a Cause: The Timothy Carey-John Cassavetes Partnership”; Filmfax magazine #56 (May/June 1996)

Karl Malden literally kicks Timothy’s ass in a scene that didn’t make the final cut of One-Eyed Jacks

As much as I love and admire it, The World’s Greatest Sinner is a difficult film for me to write about. It is raw, crude and explosive. It is radical not only in content but in form as well, with crazy jump cuts, unexpected uses of color, and several shots edited in upside down. It explores some vital, often dark themes – political corruption, humanity’s relationship to the divine, the soul-crushing drudgery inherent in the 9-to-5 rat race, mass hypnotism and the herd mentality. I wonder, though, if these themes have a tendency to be obscured by the film’s overall in-your-face madness. It is hailed today in some quarters as the first “punk rock” film, and I would agree, but it’s so much more than sex, (no drugs) and rock ’n roll. At times it strikes me as resembling one of those lurid Jack Chick religious tracts come to life.

- Marisa Young (HEY THAT’S ME!), “Let’s Not Hate Anyone: Timothy Carey and The World’s Greatest Sinner“; Cashiers du Cinemart 18 (March 2014) (Also available for your Kindle)

Today we observe the 90th birthday anniversary of the legendary Marlon Brando. Timothy appeared with him twice, in The Wild One (1953) and One-Eyed Jacks (1961). Here is a rarely seen promo still from that latter film that I received from friend of the blog Toby Roan, author of the forthcoming A Million Feet of Film: The Making of One-Eyed Jacks. In a scene not appearing in the final cut of the film, the dead body of ne’er-do-well Howard Tetley is carried away by Rio, the man who shot him (Brando), Chico (Larry Duran) and Sheriff Dad Longworth (Karl Malden).

“You know, I was always a hound for publicity,” Tim said in the Psychotronic interview. “They were doing the Academy Awards and Brando was up for it. Well, I knew him from The Wild One, I knew he was going to get it (for On the Waterfront), so I was getting dressed up for it and I was going to go up there and get it before he got there, but some guy from Western Costume who was dressing me up talked me out of it.” I think most of us secretly – or perhaps not so secretly – wish he had gone ahead with his dastardly plan. Sending afterlife birthday greetings to you, Mr. Brando!

TWGS [The World's Greatest Sinner] has been difficult, but not impossible to see, until recently. Much rarer is Tweet’s Ladies of Pasadena, a collection of footage, shot between 1969 and 1974, that was slated for a TV pilot in the 70s. This train wreck makes TWGS look like Citizen Kane; my first reaction was that it was unwatchable, but as it went on and I laughed hard at one and then another ridiculous scene, I couldn’t look away, always wondering what the hell he might do next. Carey stars as the roller-skating, bib-overall wearing Tweet Twig, caretaker of a menagerie of animals including goats, chickens, ducks, dogs and kittens (all of which belonged to the Carey family). Who talk. Yes, Timothy Carey made a talking animal picture, and naturally, the German Shepherd has a German accent.

After the four hours of films were over, Romeo Carey, who expressed surprised that more people didn’t walk out on Tweet’s (several in the audience did), took questions from the audience. I asked if he knew about this newspaper item:

New York Times, May 8, 1957
Missing US Actor is Found

MUNICH, Germany, May 7 (Reuters)–Timothy Carey, 31-year old Hollywood actor who disappeared from his hotel here Sunday night, was found gagged and handcuffed on a lonely road outside Munich this morning, the police said here today. They said the actor had hitched a ride in a car driven by two English-speaking men, who held him at gunpoint, robbed him of $40 and finally dumped him by the roadside.

Romeo Carey did know about it. After shooting for Paths of Glory had wrapped, Timothy Carey had been frustrated with the publicity around Kirk Douglas and his other co-stars. So he faked his own kidnapping. In another incident around that time, the crew had gone to a burlesque show one evening in which one performer ended her act in a bubble bath on stage. Timothy Carey walked right up to the stage and got into the bubble bath with her.

Carey’s son painted a picture of life with father that was funny and uncomfortable. Romeo admitted that he used to be tremendously embarrassed by the Tweet’s footage. Toward the end of his life Carey became obsessed with the artistic possibilities of the fart. His last, unfinished project was a play called The Insect Trainer, about a man convicted of murder by farting. Carey liked to fart in church, just before reaching out to greet his neighbor in a sign of peace.

- Pat Padua, “Timothy Carey’s 57 Varieties”, the bloggy, bloggy dew (April 16, 2010)

In films since 1952, character actor Timothy Carey gained a cult following for his uncompromising portrayals of sadistic criminals, drooling lechers, and psycho killers. His definitive screen moment occurred in Stanley Kubrick‘s The Killing (1956), in which, as two-bit hoodlum Nikki Arcane, he gleefully shot down a race horse. Kubrick used Carey again in Paths of Glory (1957), this time in the sympathetic role of condemned prisoner Private Ferol. Equally impressed by Carey’s work was director John Cassavetes, who gave the actor a leading role in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976). In 1965, Carey spoofed his unsavory screen image in Beach Blanket Bingo, playing leather-jacketed cyclist South Dakota Slim, who expresses his affection for leading lady Linda Evans by strapping her to a buzz saw. He went on to menace the Monkees in Head (1968), bellowing out incomprehensible imprecations as Davy, Mike, Micky and Peter cowered in confused terror. One of his juiciest film roles was as a rock-singing evangelist in The World’s Greatest Sinner (1962), which he also produced, directed, and wrote. In his later years, Timothy Carey occasionally occupied his time as an acting teacher.

- Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide (accessed 04/13/2014)

Timothy Agoglia Carey lived and died an underground legend.

The heavy-lidded, conspicuously tall actor crafted one of the most disjointed, overlooked and under-appreciated film careers in cinema history.

He was a man who refused to compromise, didn’t check his spelling, and never, ever listened to a goddamn word anybody said to him.

He wrote, produced and directed a play called THE INSECT TRAINER, which revolved around the power and the importance of farting.

He brought John Cassavetes over to his house, put him in a dog attack suit and let three rottweilers jump on him, while yelling words of encouragement from the next room, “It’s not you they hate, it’s the suit!”

Richard Widmark beat him up on the set of 1956′s THE LAST WAGON. Not to be outdone, in 1961 Carey was kicked in the ribs by Karl Malden and stabbed with a pen by Marlon Brando during the making of ONE-EYED JACKS.

He was one of the few actors Stanley Kubrick ever trusted to improvise a scene.

He faked his own kidnapping and ransom note during the filming of PATHS OF GLORY, just to get some press.

He led a life of strange brilliance. Carey’s passion for life blazed a trail of wide-eyed wonder that has been followed by such contemporary icons as Crispin Glover and Andy Kaufman.

Through all of this, and much, much more, he always remained true to the world he most definitely helped create and flourish: the underground.

- Sam McAbee, “Timothy Carey: Saint of the Underground”; Cashiers du Cinemart #12 (2001)

Carey was certainly attracting the right kinds of people with such skewed antics. In 1956, Stanley Kubrick gave Carey the role of racist horse-killer Nikki Arane in The Killing and the court-martialled French private Ferol in Paths Of Glory (1957). They remain two of the most powerful, sinister and haunted performances in all of Kubrick’s films.

Yet, it’s once we stray off the path of conventional film-making and into the murky world of the B-movie that Carey’s true genius reveals itself. Alongside junk cinema king Peter Graves, Tim Carey appeared in Harold Daniels‘ Poor White Trash (1961) [ed. note: originally released as Bayou in 1957] as Ulysses, a mean-eyed Cajun loon. The film’s highlights include Carey performing the most disturbing inbred zydeco dance ever committed to celluloid, then attacking Graves with a very big axe. [...]

Edit – 30 September 2002

We received this additional info on Carey from his second cousin once removed. Thanks Susan!

“My Dad remembers playing with Tim in Brooklyn as a kid… he said he was a funny guy way before he headed to California… used to go out in the street with a flute and play it while directing traffic. They also used to mess around with a dumbwaiter hoisting each other up and down.”

- Andrew Male, “Timothy Carey,” Bizarre magazine #27 (January 2000)

Today’s pic is a variation on the familiar promotional shot of Timothy manhandling James Dean in Elia Kazan‘s East of Eden (1955). This one, less commonly seen, appears to have been taken a few seconds later (or earlier, it’s hard to tell), with Tim deep in shadow.

Tim described shooting this scene in “The Highways of Heaven”, his article on his friendship with Dean that appeared in Movie Stars Parade magazine in 1957. “In our next fight sequence, I was supposed to pummel Jimmy as he ran through the hallway after leaving his mother’s office. I grabbed hold of his hair; we got into a struggle, I hit him and almost caved in the side of his face. He never said anything. I couldn’t understand the guy. Any other actor would have called the cops. But not Jimmy. That’s the way he wanted it – real.” Whether or not Dean truly had, as has long been rumored, a masochistic streak, he certainly was the kind of actor who preferred to keep things real.

On this date twenty years ago, Timothy passed away. It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty years already. However, though his corporeal form has left us, his spirit remains, as vital and larger-than-life as ever. For someone I never actually met, he certainly has essentially taken over my life. And I’m perfectly fine with that. Here is his obituary, as it appeared in the New York Times on May 17, 1994.

Timothy Carey, a character actor whose films ranged from Paths of Glory and One-Eyed Jacks to 1960′s beach movies, died on Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He was 65.

Finger Man, in particular, is a good example of his early work. Carey plays the right hand goon to mastermind pimp/bootlegger Forrest Tucker. Tucker conveys a cunning and diabolical type; Carey, however, defines a true sociopath, unbridled by gangland criminal codes. He is seen roughing up a woman in one scene, moving her around the set as if she were a small piece of cheap furniture. Later in the film, Frank Lovejoy, the hero, turns on Carey with menacing rancor. Carey reveals himself as the coward we know that all bullies are. This sort of scene is familiar to American film; the difference is, Carey drops the bottom out and operates in the realm of pathos alien to American movies of the ‘50s. America likes a winning quality to its losers.

- Alex de Laszlo, “The Wonderful Horrible Life of Timothy Carey”, Uno Mas magazine, 1996

“Somewhere around there I was kicked out of six films in a row. Then I did BAYOU and they wanted me to play the heavy, so I went down to Louisiana and played a Cajun, Ulysses. ‘What I want I gonna get and no dirty Yonkee from swell country is gonna take it away from me!’ Peter Graves takes away my woman and we have a big fight scene in the cemetery and I fall on an axe.” Carey’s Cajun bully was memorable (other characters refer to him as a shark and a snake), but his standout bit was doing an incredible uninhibited dance to accordion music. He hops in the air, does rubberleg moves, caresses himself and scratches like he has fleas, while a storm brews. The Ulysses dance is so good that it’s edited in several times. BAYOU was made at about the same time as Roger Corman‘s SWAMP WOMAN. Both featured Corman regulars Jonathan Haze and Ed Nelson. BAYOU was directed by Harold Daniels who had co-directed the famous roadshow hit, THE PRINCE OF PEACE with William Beaudine.

- Psychotronic Video magazine #6, Summer 1990; interview by Michael Murphy andJohnny Legend, research by Michael J. Weldon

Marilyn Monroe was born 88 years ago today. This is what Timothy had to say about her in a 1958 interview with columnist Mel Heimer.

Tim is working on three projects: (1) to out-dance Elvis Presley in Macy’s window, (2) to kidnap Marilyn Monroe (“with her permission, of course”), and (3) to steal an Oscar.

- Mel Heimer, My New York; Simpson’s Leader-Times, January 18, 1958

For a weird, Z-grade movie, The World’s Greatest Sinner is remarkably prescient. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, there would be an explosion of God Hilliards out there. The Manson Family, the MOVE, the SLA, and Jonestown were all political and religious hybrid cults with charismatic leaders that led their followers into horrible ends.

The film’s music was composed and conducted by an (at the time) unknown musician from the L.A. area, Frank Zappa. There’s nothing in the music that is noticeably Zappa-esque, it mostly sounds like countless other swinging soundtracks from no-budget ‘60s films. Zappa briefly promoted the film during his 1963 appearance on the Steve Allen Show. There to show off his talents at playing the bicycle as a musical instrument, Zappa casually calls The World’s Greatest Sinner, “the world’s worst movie.” Zappa would later make the world’s worst movie, the unwatchable dreck known as 200 Motels.

The World’s Greatest Sinner failed to gain any wide distribution. For decades the film was the stuff of legend with rough bootlegs being passed around. That started to change with its initial airing on Turner Classic Movies – you can now purchase the film on iTunes. I first heard about it on a list compiled by Lux Interior and Poison Ivy of The Cramps where they ranked it their favorite film. Carey continued to work as a character actor in TV and films until his death in 1994, though he never completed another film as a director. He did work on directing Tweet’s Ladies of Pasadena, but the film was never completed and it has been said that the footage is unwatchable. Regardless, Carey has morphed into a full-blown cult movie icon. The Timothy Carey Experience is a regularly updated fan site dedicated to the legendary character actor.

As is the case with many no-budget, Z-grade films from the ‘60s, The World’s Greatest Sinner can be rough around the edges. The film does avoid the Z-grade pratfalls of padding the running time with stock footage to hit the 90-minute mark, running a tight 77-minutes. Even though Carey has worked with some of the greatest filmmakers in history, his work as a director varies from borderline incompetence to borderline brilliance. Even though the film isn’t the work of a cinema virtuoso, it’s an unusual, brave, and uncompromising work. Like its star, writer, and director,The World’s Greatest Sinner is truly one of a kind.

- Sean Mulvihill, “Reelin’ and Rockin’ – The World’s Greatest Sinner: A True Cult Film”; FanBoyNation.com, May 30, 2014

FAX: Is a cult forming around Timothy Carey?

CAREY: Oh yes, there is no doubt about that. I get e-mail from around the world from people who are just now discovering him. My dad was always pretty famous. As kids, we couldn’t go anywhere with him that he wouldn’t be recognized. He is remembered because he was a great actor who appeared in some landmark films, like Paths of Glory and The Killing. He made his own films, which influenced other independent filmmakers. It all comes down to originality. Someone as iconoclastic as my father resonates down the generations. It’s a mystery why he is becoming more popular since his death, but I think there’s a whole pirated underground of [The World's Greatest] Sinner tapes out there. There are regular screenings of Sinner in Brooklyn that attract a thousand people per screening. There are Tim Carey film festivals in Chicago, San Francisco, even Australia! For a guy who did what he did in his little way, it’s pretty impressive. It just goes to show, if you put the right kind of energy into something, it doesn’t go away.

- Romeo Carey, “Carrying On in the Family Tradition”, interview by Harvey F. Chartrand; Filmfax Plus #102 (April/June 2004)

Happy Father’s Day!

GUASTI

Then… this man actually made music with his anus?

BOSKORSKY

Of course… his colon was a polytongued organ and he could fire it as if from a magaxine of a gune. At least a dozen tropes of musical modes of which he chose only those that had artistic merit. It’s amazing La Pet became so wealthy from his fete or rather his rectum, I should say, he bought the Moulin Rouge, where he performed. He was the toast of the continent!

(STANDS)

All dressed-up in top hat, tuxedo and tails… on stage a spotlight was always on his backside of his pants, which was split, of course, so the audience could hear every note… I know, because I had the honor of seeing and hearing him perform… (STARTS DANCE) he was incomperable, (In Russian): Fantastic… tell you, truly a legend in his own time, monsieur La Pet. The Fart. (HUMMS the French Anthem)

GUASTI

(IN ECSTACY)

Wow! Wow! Wow!

JUDGE

(POUNDS GAVEL)

Order, order in the court.

CURTAIN COMES DOWN

- Timothy Carey, The Insect Trainer (1988; final draft 1993). Presented as it appears in the script verbatim, with Tim’s spelling and syntax intact.

Carey’s final project as a film director is Godfarter III (1989), an audition piece for [Francis Ford] Coppola, who was looking to cast the role of an elderly Mafia don for The Godfather: Part III (1990). Coppola considered Carey too young for the part (and may also have been put off by Carey’s earlier eccentricities on The Godfather). Carey tried to convince the director that he could tackle the role of Don Altobello, but it wasn’t meant to be, and Eli Wallach was eventually cast in the part.

- Harvey F. Chartrand, “Timothy Carey, The World’s Greatest Director!”; Filmfax Plus #102 (April/June 2004)