Dr. Harden: "Don't worry, son...
if you play your cards right,
you'll end up
running the government some day!"
<i.>
If you're a dedicated vampire like me, you can find anything to watch, if you try hard enough. A good video and/or audio soundtrack is an absolute must, when you work all night, as I often do. But sometimes, you have to take what you get, which explains how I sat through Brink Of Disaster!, and its sequel, Tragedy Or Hope?, a two-part anti-hippie agitprop epic produced and released by Searcy College, a fundamentalist college in Arkansas, in 1972. I found them during my usual 3:00 a.m. channel surfing, as part of a "Reel America" series on C-SPAN3 (American History TV).
Conservative agitprop has a long history in America, for anyone who cares to trawl through it. Notorious examples include the camp classic, Reefer Madness (1936) and The Terrible Truth (1951), which frets that "the Soviet Union was pushing drugs in America." From those efforts, it's not a big leap to the videos featured on PragerU, right-wing talk show host Dennis Prager's brainchild, like "Do You Understand The Electoral College?", and its immortal tagline, "Pure democracies do not work." Tell me more, Dennis, tell me more...
As low budget projects go, Brink Of Disaster! and Tragedy Or Hope seem a notch lower than most. (I had to make liberal use of my Fill Light function, because the prints I saw looked so muddy and washed out.) Both films take place in a college library, with a skimpy plot to match their equally skimpy budgets, as the lone Internet Movie Database review makes plain: "Johnny, one of the leaders in a gang that is against anything and everything, breaks into the library to study (?) and also to protect the library from the hooligans when they arrive. This already doesn't make sense."
That's putting it mildly, as we'll see, but the filmmakers caught one break. Although American involvement in Vietnam, and the campus protests, sit-ins and strikes that accompanied it, were gradually winding down at this point -- as President Richard Nixon seemed certain to cruise to a second term -- there was enough unrest going on to pad out both films with stock footage galore, Ed Wood-style.
<"Brink Of Disaster": Opening Montage
AV Geeks: YouTube Screen Grab>
<ii.>
Deep down, I suspect that Ed Wood would have felt perversely proud of Brink Of Disaster!, and not just because he apparently held his own conservative views. As proof, commentators point to Wood's speechwriting work for Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, for whom he also directed segments of a local talk show that the city's chief executive fronted throughout his tenure (1960-74). (Then again, maybe we're reading too much into the association. Wood, like countless creatives, took quickie gig jobs for money, whether he believed in a project, or didn't.)
Yorty became remembered (and reviled) for a cranky brand of populism that tilted sharply rightward as his tenure continued. The same harsh critic of busing, feminism and civil rights had no problems with his city's notoriously brutal and creepy police force, and its bareknuckled response to the 1965 Watts riots. Yorty attributed them to "outside agitators" (Communists, in far right-speak). Sounds a lot like that antifa hard-on that Trump and company got during last summer's unrest, doesn't it?
Hence, you get ample footage of campus unrest -- featuring H. Rap Brown and Jerry Rubin, the antifa boogeymen of their era -- contrasted with generous images of every day Americana, from assembly lines, to large farming fields, and clips of people going about their business in classrooms, libraries, and hospitals, presumably designed to give the viewer a warm, fuzzy feeling about the good ol' US of A, of course.
This trope takes a truly racist turn in Tragedy Of Hope, when Dr. Harden snaps back at Johnny's ambivalence about capitalism, by sneering, "What's wrong with this type of materialism? It's the difference between life in the jungle, and life in civilization." Cut to a stereotypical image of "natives" dancing with oversized shields. All that's missing is the bone in the nose.
From eyeballing that scene, you'd never know that institutions like Makerere University, in Uganda, or the National University of Singapore were already well-established as world-class institutions. Stock they may be, but such images tell you, better than anything else, where the filmmakers were actually coming from.
"Stop this bad historical acting...
right now! Please!"
<iii.>
That said, Brink Of Disaster! boasts some big names, as a quick scan through IMDB reveals. Producer Jerry Fairbanks arguably had the most glittering resume, as his bio suggests (below). He'd started as a cameraman during the silent era, before graduating to more complex assignments, like choreographing the aerial dogfights in Hells' Angels (1930), an early Howard Hughes sound film. Fairbanks became one of the first directors to recognize the promise of television, and is considered the real pioneer of the three-camera setup that became its common production currency.
Although Desi Arnaz and Karl Freund reaped the credit for using the three-camera shoot, as co-producers of I Love Lucy, Arnaz freely acknowledged where he'd gotten his inspiration. (Fairbanks claimed that he didn't bother patenting his idea, because he cared more about helping the fledgling TV industry, than personal credit, or money) He still managed to keep himself busy, mostly with short films, like Letter To Moscow (1959), an industrial flick that slammed the Soviet way of life (and allegedly wound up hand delivered to Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev!).
Director John Florea had overseen hit shows like Sea Hunt, and Mission Impossible, while screenwriter Leo Rosecrans specialized in short films like Anatomy Of An Accident (1961), and such curiosities as Charlie's Haunt (1950) a comedy that features Edgar Bergen's famous wooden companion haunting a small town. As the cliche goes, you couldn't make up this stuff, if you tried.
Ed Nelson -- who plays Dr. Hartman, the professor and mouthpiece for the filmmakers' presumptive views -- is the only "name" actor here. Best known as Dr. Michael Rossi, in "Peyton Place," Nelson amassed nearly 200 credits (see below). Brink Of Disaster marked one of seven appearances for him in 1972 alone, between guest spots in period shows like Night Gallery, Sixth Sense, and Owen Marshall, Counselor At Law.
Gary Crabbe, cast as the imaginatively named John(ny) Smith, wannabe student agitator -- notched just four TV gigs between 1969 and 1974, the bulk of them as an uncredited dancer on The Julie Andrews Hour (1972-73). You can only imagine how his agent pitched this assignment: "Hey, kid, everybody's gotta start somewhere..." It probably sounded better than the alternative: "Fame is a harsh mistress," I guess.
if we could only find the parts..."
<iv.>
So what happens in these films? Not much, honestly. Brink opens with Johnny bent over a desk at the library, to research a paper he's writing about the heartbeats of turtles (!), but the baseball bat he's carrying suggests that something sinister is afoot. It falls to his Revolutionary War ancestor, Jonathan Smith, to explain that he's returned from the spirit world to see if his descendants really appreciate the country he worked so hard to build.
Jonathan doesn't show up until about the 3:30 mark, as a buttery acoustic jazz bassline burbles in the background. He warns Johnny about seeing a crowd of radicals plotting to burn down the college library, and asks what he plans to do about it. Johnny helpfully explains that he just wants to protect the medical books. As for the rest of the volumes? "That's not my responsibility," he scoffs.
"Now, look, son, " Jonathan scolds. "You can't stand on both sides of the fence at once." He demands that Johnny take a firmer stand against the radicals, saying that he and his spirit world buddies discussed trying to arrest the whole lot of them. "We just don't stomach a bunch of hooligans trying to tear down what we've given our whole lives to build," Jonathan frets.
They yammer on for a few minutes more, in classic turgid '70s style. At one point, as Jonathan rhapsodizes about the role of family and religion ("They kept us straight"). he wonders if finding the right girl might make Johnny feel more contented with his lot.
"I've found dozens of 'em," Johnny leers. "Why keep a cow, when milk's so cheap?" That freewheeling bit of cynicism is among the only authentic elements here, if only because I've heard so many so-called Christians hurl that metaphor in my face, too, when I acknowledged my own live-in relationship. That I'm happily married, decades later, never entered their heads. Then again, it never would, if films like this one were the end result.
<"Tragedy Or Hope"
YouTube Screen Grab:
Dr. Harden: "Captain, do you think anybody
will sit through this piffle more than once?"
Captain Smith: "Aye, mate. They've got to.
There's nothing else at 3:00 a.m."
<iv.>
Not to worry, though. Three minutes before Brink finally wraps up, one of Johnny's professors, Dr. Harden, arrives to give him the philosophical beatdown he deserves. He telegraphs that intent by scoffing at SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) as "Students for a dirtier society." It's an odd jibe to hurl, since SDS's influence had waned drastically, after a much-publicized split in 1969; its dissolution was only two years away when these films came out. Either Fairbanks and company had no clue, or figured nobody would care.
Dr. Harden also has little truck with popular culture ("Freedom of speech is now freedom of filth"), in general, and pornography, in particular ("filthy books that no decent people would read"). He's also not terribly keen on young people living together, which is happening, anyway, like it or not, as Johnny retorts: "A lot of us guys and girls think that sleeping together because you want to is a lot better than sleeping together because you're supposed to."
His cage suitably rattled, Johnny lights up a joint, which sets up another dreary round of verbal jiu jitsu with his older antagonist.
Dr. Harden invokes the fear of being "weakened from within," another classic anti-Communist trope. Yes, he concedes, using pot isn't like shooting heroin. However... "No one goes directly to heroin," Dr. Harden barks. "But nearly everybody on heroin started with marijuana."
Just then, we hear the radicals screaming and pounding away. As the door buckles and shudders under its assault, Johnny waves Dr. Harden off with his bat, apparently ready to fling it open, and admit the mob -- until a whack on his noggin from Jonathan's musket knocks him stiff, and he falls to the floor, like a limp, wet rag.
"Sorry, Johnny, but I couldn't see you being a part of that wrecking crew," Jonathan sighs.
Brink Of Disaster! ends with a freeze frame of Jonathan and Dr Harden weighing their options, as the final title card heaves into view: WILL YOU LET THIS BE THE END?
We know it's not, because we've got another 25 minutes to yawn through, so buckle up, boys and girls.
<"Tragedy Or Hope":
Final Scene:
Final Scene:
YouTube Screen Grab>
Our plucky defense team prepares to show the mindless mob "what's right about America."
<v.>
Tragedy Or Hope? begins with a rerun of the climactic three minutes from its predecessor, as an anonymous narrator intones: "Let's see if we can work out an allegorical second chance for John Smith, and incidentally, see what we can come up with for ourselves."Cue another sensational title card ("Will it Be Tragedy, Or Hope?"), and more bad historical acting, from two more ancestors come to set Johnny straight: Captain Jack Smith, an 1850s-era steamboat captain, who wheezes out his insights in a cod Irish accent that sounds eerily close to those Leprachaun horror movies ("In America, people are always free to dream"), and John Jeremy Smith, who happens to be Johnny's recently departed grandfather. (Neither actor, like the guy playing Jonathan Smith, is credited, which is probably just as well for them, right?)
"Smitty," as Gramps prefers to call himself, just happened to have worked for Henry Ford! Imagine that, eh? Smitty recalls the Model T's creator as a genius who always outpaced his competitors ("He just put his mind to it, and built a better one"), one raised on religious principles, of course. Apparently, he never heard about Ford's anti-Semitic and union-busting proclivities.
Not to be outdone, Jonathan rhapsodizes about the wonders of "electrolicity," and modern farming, though I suspect he might change his tune, if somebody could explain the horrors of Monsanto's tactics to him. Dr. Harden also gets in a few more rhetorical punches, including a pitch for pure capitalism ("It's the greatest economic system ever known").
With so much yammering chewing up screen time, it's easy to forget the pretext for these films, which heats up when the door begins to buckle, once more, and the mob's full-throated roar rises a few more decibels. Jonathan, Captain Jack and Smitty hoist their makeshift weapons -- a musket, piece of mood, and Model T hand crank, respectively -- and gird for action.
How (or where) they find them isn't explained, which sets up another unintentionally comic moment, as Smitty frets over the unimpressive nature of his weapon: "It's the best I could find. It's a little crooked, but I'll straighten it out on somebody." Glad we've cleared that issue up, then.
The intrepid group rushes forward, until Johnny raises his hand. He lowers his bat, momentarily, to deliver the climactic line: "I'm gonna tell 'em what's right with this country. That's still our best weapon."
Cue freeze frame, final title card, in all caps, so you get the message ("WILL YOU LET THIS TIME OF OUR LIVES BE TRAGEDY OR HOPE?"), which is delivered amid the stirring orchestral strains of "My Country, 'Tis Of Thee." Assuming you've made it this far, you probably won't feel stirred to watch this onslaught of cinematic word gruel ever again.
Grandpa Smith regrets to inform you that he didn't bring a suitable blunt instrument.
<Coda>
Looking back now, I can only wonder, "Who was this for, exactly?" Not the "silent majority" who supported Richard Nixon, and already agreed with the message, presumably. Certainly, not the "dirty hippies" that Dr. Harden's character derides so gleefully, and so freely.
That leaves one other option: most likely, "fence sitters" like Johnny, but I doubt this nearly hour-long epic would have stirred them to do anything but head for the exits. Or maybe get back to some heavy petting action, wherever this curiosity actually got shown. I can't imagine either film made it on too many screens.
Nowadays, of course, that angle wouldn't be a problem, starting with that wonderful digital octopus we call social media, like YouTube, where period pieces like this one can now enjoy a second act, of sorts. As we've seen from the likes of Fox News, or PragerU, the far right has considerably sharpened its professional and presentation A-game.
For all I know, somebody out there's thinking of rebooting these two films, weird as they are, only with stock footage of last summer's post-George Floyd unrest taking center stage, and a leaner, hungrier-looking Johnny bantering with a different set of ancestors, like a great-grandfather who helped Ayn Rand get lecture bookings, for example.
Sound far-fetched? Not when you consider the constant "Stop the steal" messaging, brought to you through the above platforms, that's left us in our current predicament. Going after such messaging in a post-Trump era, is a much bigger job than taking down the man who inspired it, and lit the fuse for it. And therein lies the problem. And the challenge. --The Reckoner
Links To Go (Click Fast, Before
The Bad B-Acting Overwhelms You...)
Brink Of Disaster: Full Movie:
Internet Media Database:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291054/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0291054/
Jerry Fairbanks: Wikipedia Bio
Ed Nelson: Wikipedia Bio
Tragedy or Hope?: Full Film:
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