MEN IN BLACK III is now in theaters as the standard operational summer-blockbuster-related-to-a-comic-book sequel. If its release is at least partially responsible for the followup to G.I. JOE - THE RISE OF COBRA being bumped to 2013, then Agent J and Agent K really have done a service to humanity, in one sense. In another sense this unnecessary sequel's existence gives us an excuse to reprint this most amazing fun fact: The very first THE MEN IN BLACK? It was actually made in
No, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones had nothing to do with
it. THE MEN IN BLACK (note the pronoun) is completely unrelated to the Columbia
Pictures cash cow. Directed by Ohio State University alumnus Bradley Lee this
low-budget 16mm indie feature from the early 1990s hearkened back to the
original paranormal-urban-legend mythology, in which MIBs are mysterious,
threatening quasi-official characters who try to intimidate flying-saucer
witnesses. Such are the odd diction, movements and demeanor of the MIBs,
according to the lore, that they could well seem to be extraterrestrial
creatures/robots clumsily masquerading as human.
THE MEN IN BLACK reached screens (well, one screen
anyway, in an extremely limited Mansfield run)
in 1992, with a sober plot about unstable Cleveland
psychiatrist Dr. Conrad O'Brien seeing a UFO (a cheapie video effect) hover
over Lake Erie . Subsequently he is harassed by
three weird men in black suits and dark glasses, a la the Blues Brothers, except
they move and talk in jerky, vaguely machine-like fashion and tend to disappear
(and reappear) in poor Dr. O’Brien’s increasingly stressful life. The strangers may be
government agents, aliens - or possibly just figments of the O'Brien's
off-his-medication imagination.
Naturally, there are no great visual showstoppers or Rick
Baker creature f/x, but the three MIBs are pretty creepy characters, as they relentless and rather pointlessly (this just makes them all the more compelling) torment O’Brien to his doom. The climax happens at the top of
Perry's Column on Put-In Bay, and I can't say I've ever seen that before or
since.
Although an okay little piece of suspense and Kafkaesque ambiguity, THE MEN IN BLACK failed to find distribution; producer
Walt Burbach wound up peddling the movie on tape with his own line of
martial-arts instructional VHS cassettes.
Apart from some puzzled phone calls from friends about
it, the filmmakers didn't ride any coattails from the Columbia Pictures
hit, although the Ohio picture did have a strange epilogue. Excerpts from THE MEN IN
BLACK turned up as gags in an equally obscure comedy called FILMS THAT SUCK: THE
MOVIES OF READ RIDLEY, shot in the Nashville
area and completed in 1999.
I never got to see FILMS THAT SUCK, but I understand that
director Marvin Baker's comedy concerned the German edition of Rolling Stone
Magazine sending an ace reporter to the US boondocks to hype an unknown
genius director, who turns out to be an Ed Wood-type incompetent. Rather than
fabricate silly film clips for which the fictional Ridley was responsible, the
FILMS THAT SUCK filmmakers culled excerpts from actual productions that hadn't
broken through to the mainstream (one later did get some major attention, in
fact, the cult documentary DANCING OUTLAW). The idea that there was another MEN IN BLACK that wasn't MEN IN BLACK tickled their funnybone, so THE MEN IN BLACK made the cut -
even though it didn't really suck.
That's the story, such as it is, of the other THE
MEN IN BLACK, the one with Ohio
roots. For a time there back in the day, one of the few places you could rent
it up here was the late, great B-Ware Video in Lakewood ,
and it appears that a public library in Dayton
may once have had the VHS (I’m sure to the puzzlement of patrons who wanted
their Will Smith fix). I can’t even find a description of THE MEN IN
BLACK in any meaningful way on the internet. This may be it, you lucky readers.
For that matter, FILMS THAT SUCK has a little more online coverage, but not all that much. Doesn’t seem to be on Amazon, even.
So okay, while studios try to assess whether MEN IN BLACK
III is a bomb or not just because it only made, like $200 million in its first
week, whereas some other piece-of-crap comic-book sequel did considerably more,
a moment of silence, please, for the likes of Bradley Lee and Walt Burbach,
those struggling unknowns who do lots of celluloid in total anonymity, and, for
my money, sometimes accomplish feats of cinema just as entertaining as the soulless, megabucks
corporate product. I, for one, will never forget the MIB leader’s funny-scary
recitations: “You-have-become-a-nuisance-to-us-Doctor-Conrad-O’Brien…”
Thank you for remembering our flick! Jeff K.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting!
DeleteQuite the novelty back in Mansfield, Ohio as most of the filming took place there. The film also premiered at the local regional theatre venue. That is as far as it went. Doug Wertz- aka Dr. Conrad O'Brien
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and commenting, Doug!
DeleteThe bulk of the film was actually shot in Mansfield Ohio. Not Columbus. There are pick up shots in various locations including Cleveland to give the illusion that Conrad O"Brien was an actual Cleveland based psychiatrist.
ReplyDeleteThe Men In Black has a Facebook page. Quite a bit of nostalgic material was saved, scanned and posted there. https://www.facebook.com/The-Men-In-Black-806136526078952/
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info!
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