Time for our next auteur, A Director Called God, it's Christopher St. John: a director so nice, the IMDb numbered him twice. Like I need to tell Quentin Tarantino, St. John spent his Golden Years in Hollywood during the go-go seventies. Great fashion! Classic terrible music! It had violins, so even the squares had to like that, right? Oh, but you gotta keep busy before the big break comes. Gotta keep the gears of that big ol' Hollywood machine well-greased, often no matter what it takes! For Christopher, it mean the occasionall X-rated feature. But there was one that had a nice title that even David Letterman might like: Hot Pants Holiday... at least, until finding out it's an X-rated picture. Guess that's not much of a stretch. That particular picture was directed by Edward Mann, and... my God! What is he, nuts? What, is he NUTS? No adult film pseudonym like Ceasar Honeybee? To try and make things better... or possibly worse... Mann directed a 'G' picture with Jack Klugman, of TV fame... such things like "The Odd Couple" and ... Jack Klugman M.D.? "Quincy M.E." Sorry, didn't know it off the top of my head. Anyway, adult-film director tried to go straight with a 'G' picture, and it's called Who Says I Can't Ride A Rainbow! I know, I know, it's what the adult version was going to be called, but hey, why waste a perfectly good title? Plus, it was the seventies and all that. And we can't all get in to see Finian's Rainbow, now, can we?
Anyway, so Christopher St. John does a little art house film called Shaft, and it's a big success. So big, in fact, that St. John knew it was time for his big break, so out comes the script from mothballs. The title gets changed to Top of the Heap, but whatever. No other compromises from now on. To cut to the chase, alas... this African-American take on Walter Mitty was just too far ahead of its time for 1970s America, probably STILL too far ahead now! Unfortunately, St. John was never given the keys to the kingdom again. HOWEVER, all was not lost, for a mere five years later, it was back to the day job! ACTING!!!
Boy, those TV gigs must've paid an awful lot! I'm just saying, if I had a résumé like that, the guy doing the interview, or a tough-as-nails gal with something to prove, would be asking about all those big-ass time gaps you could almost drive a truck through. (God bless the distractions of YouTube) I wouldn't have a suitable answer, but St. John apparently did, and some 32 years later, after his kid was all raised and out of the house, the perfect project came along. A story that needed to be told, and Christopher St. John was the only guy on Earth who could tell it. The story? His own! After the critical and commercial failure of his first film, looking for answers even harder than Tom Shadyac after Evan Almighty, Christopher and wife found them in a guru named Sathya Sai Baba... you know, A MAN CALLED GOD. That reminds me of this thing I half-saw on TV about a guy who was a lowly worker at a car wash, but he had a small family of his own WHO WORSHIPPED HIM LIKE A GOD. I guess he was an anti-Capitalist when he had to be. But where can we see this A Man Called God? Maybe it's here on YouTube... no, that's a movie called A Man Called Jon. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I think it's past my bedtime or something. And this is some kind of an unrelated TV show. Whelp, we'll just keep trying then.
Interview with Kristoff St. John about A Man Called God
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