Ever since the 1920s, when air conditioners were introduced into movie theaters and the people of the USA discovered the joy of escaping from the hateful heat and humidity, the idea of the summer movie blockbuster has been in the public consciousness. There have been careers made—and broken—by the performance of a summer release that defied expectations, for better or worse. Additionally, a film will sometimes be near completion and end up shelved for any number of reasons, wasting millions of investor dollars. We’re nothing, if not students of history here at Exotic, so I present for you now some of the worst-received, most poorly reviewed, curiously forgotten or tragically unreleased summer films we could find.
This was supposed to be a fun, topical romp, with Errol Flynn as the marooned, treasure-hunting adventurer, a scantily clad "native" damsel (Sofia Romano in her first and only role) as the love interest/damsel-in-distress and some trained macaques as comic relief. Unfortunately, Italian-American starlet Sofia Romano died during the production of the movie, after a couple of disgruntled film crew members broke into Romano’s pharmaceutical supplies, giving most of the starlet’s pills to the trained monkeys. The actress flew into a rage upon discovering the theft and was seen angrily shrieking Italian curses at the highly intoxicated simians, before being mobbed and torn to pieces. Footage of the event has never officially surfaced, though a Tinseltown legend claims it was caught in full Technicolor. Flynn, the star of the unreleased film, refused to discuss the event for many years, saying only that it was "fucking bananas."
Trying to cash in on the hippie movement, this inept production blew most of its budget on narcotics and alcohol for its actors and crew—reportedly, to give a more "authentic feel" to the film. What resulted was nearly two hours of Jane Fonda nodding out on a couch, Rock Hudson muttering incoherently to himself in a dark room and Charlton Heston screaming at trees. It also contained several minutes of the cinematographer filming his own feet. It was pulled from theaters after 3 days and remains largely unknown.
After the notoriety (if not success) of Battlefield Earth as a vehicle for dissemination of pseudo- religious propaganda, the Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints attempted to dip their toes into producing a science-fictionalized version of the Book Of Mormon, starring up-and-coming actors Paul Walker and Arron Eckhart. Unfortunately, what was initially an attempt at quietly spreading their ideals to the masses ended in tragic-comedy when the director was fired and scandalized after the discovery of an impressively vast collection of bestiality videos, Eckhart (playing "Space Jesus") refused to show up to set sober or clothed. Walker wouldn’t leave his trailer without being provided deviant sexual favors, the production ran out of funding two weeks into filming (due to an elaborate embezzlement scheme by their accountant) and the "Angel Ship" set piece caught fire after being struck by lightning. Shortly after this, the entire set was swallowed whole by a spontaneously appearing sinkhole that the few survivors described as having "the distinct odor of Sulphur".
In this unfinished film noir, noted cinematographer John Alton allegedly arranged a hit to be carried out on set, when his frustrations with actors not being authentic enough in their performances to suit his impactful visual style came to a head. His plan was to film the crime—as it occurred—and the resultant investigation to follow and he’d planned to edit and release this as what would have been the very first "reality drama" of all time. The director was not in on the plot, nor was lead actress Marlene Dietrich, both of whom were under the impression this was a traditional film. Sadly, for Alton’s creative vision, the man he hired to do the hit was a down-on-his-luck actor, and upon recognizing the famous cinematographer, assumed he was being enlisted for a role. So, he shot a blank at Dietrich on set. The actress fainted from being startled by the unexpected report of the gun, leading Alton to believe she had been shot. He filmed the entire scene in a frenzy and was devastated to learn he’d failed. He was never charged with a crime, perplexingly, and maintained the failure to kill Dietrich was his "greatest creative failure." Dietrich was quoted as saying, "I didn’t faint, I just took a little nap."
The only film John Travolta has ever tried using a British accent in, this masterpiece of terrible film came out during a serious lull in the actor’s career. A fairly charming, fantasy-action shoot ‘em up, Travolta is supposed to be playing an officer of Scotland Yard, who came to America to track down the reincarnation of Jack The Ripper. Unfortunately, the actor’s accent was so terrible, several of the cast and crew went into convulsive spasms and lapsed into comas during filming. So, a unanimous decision was made, to dub in the voice of an actual British actor. This went down so poorly in theaters, that the original copy was test screened (after an audience signed a waiver) once more. This resulted in an event one local newspaper at the time called "the most rabid mass hysteria we’ve ever seen." The movie theater—and three surrounding square blocks—were burnt to the ground, hospitals were overwhelmed with bizarre cases of self-mutilation and the only un-dubbed copy of the film was destroyed.
In this truly astonishing feat of racial ineptitude, Hollywood attempted to cash in on the underground phenomenon of "blaxploitation" cinema, but made the unfortunate decision to cast white actors in blackface. This film features the notable appearance of a young Farrah Fawcett, whose estate is currently in an ongoing legal battle to suppress the few remaining copies of this rare masterwork of awkwardness. The actors that were cast in the film that are not actually white appear wildly uncomfortable, the cinematography and music are spectacularly ill-chosen and the action scenes manage to make things even worse, by splicing in actual people of color. But, hearing Fawcett affect an "urban dialect" was one of the best and worst things we’ve ever (almost) seen.
