How a US comedian and Jewish blogger ended up in a Japanese designer suit being stalked by a cannibalistic baby

One of Larry Cohen’s quirky masterpieces

I recently mentioned on Facebook my admiration for the talents of movie writer-director Larry Cohen who, among many other things, was ‘murder consultant’ on the TV series Columbo. I am particularly keen on the quirky God Told Me To (a very odd film about random killings in which the title actually IS the story) and Q – The Winged Serpent (about a South American flying lizard god which lives atop the Chrysler Building in New York).

It turned out that my Facebook Friend comedian Steven Alan Green had – among his many other careers as writer, producer, performer and currently radio show host and comedy blogger for the Jewish Journal… actually appeared in a Larry Cohen movie – as a stand-up comic in the horror film sequel It’s Alive III: Island of The Alive.

Radio host, podcaster, comic, producer, actor SAG (Photograph by Dan Dion)

How did that happen?

“I was working at The Comedy Store in Hollywood as a comedian, but also answering the phones,” says Steven Alan Green, “and Larry Cohen calls on a Sunday and asks for ‘the talent department’ to get a comedian to come down that night and play a comedian in his film.

“I told him there was only me on the phone and he asked me. So I called the talent coordinator at home and he told me to take the job.

After they met at Santa Monica pier…

“So, I got down to the Santa Monica pier and was hired as ‘an extra’. But, since I had lines (improvising a stand-up act) I asked Larry about ‘Taft Hartley-ing’ me – meaning, since I was speaking in a Screen Actors’ Guild union production, he could do the paperwork to get me into the union.

“He agreed to do this if I would come in and ‘loop’ – recording my dialogue in a studio another day – which I did.”

“How long did the filming take?” I asked Steven Alan Green.

“Just one afternoon and into the night,” he told me. “They didn’t mic me during the film shoot, except when I talked with the stand-up comedy mic on set.

“So, I end up in this recording studio in Hollywood, looping my stand-up set, just saying whatever comes to mind. Larry just said to wing it, then to get him a coffee. One of the things I said was So, here’s my impression of Steven Alan Green…. and Larry left that line in the final film.

“So, if you go to this clip on YouTube and get to the scene that starts about the 4min 11sec mark and turn up the volume, there are two comedians on stage… I’m the one closest to the camera who says to Michael Moriarty: You got an act to go with that suit, sir?”

“How would you describe the movie?” I asked.

“Ah,” replied Steven Alan Green. “A horror film with Apocalyptic implications predicated on the notion that Youth are always dangerous.”

“Was Larry normal?” I asked.

“What’s normal?” said Steven Alan Green. “He was a little too normal for the type of films he makes. Friendly, hands-on. I mean, he was the one who called the Comedy Store looking for a stand-up comedian for his film. What director does that?”

“Did you,” I asked Steven Alan Green, “make any good contacts during the filming or was there any follow-up from appearing in the movie?”

“One of the cannibalistic babies started stalking me,” replied Steven Alan Green.

“Anything you want to plug?” I asked.

Jerry Lewis considered comic genius in France

“My new radio show and live podcast Stage Time with Steven Alan Green… and The Laughter Foundation, which has a big benefit planned for the Spring in San Francisco… and my blog for the Jewish Journal… and I Eat People For You Like Breakfast! my famed and infamous one-man show about my bringing Jerry Lewis to the London Palladium. I’m doing that show at The Marsh in San Francisco next Wednesday and on December 4th…”

“What does being blog writer for the Jewish Journal involve?” I asked.

“I write what I want and they publish it,” said Steven Alan Green. “My blog is called Enjoy the Veal and I review live stand-up as an art form and write open letters to Jerry Lewis. I try to review comedians’ shows in the ideal – somewhere between what they were trying to achieve and why they didn’t.”

“In the Larry Cohen movie,” I ventured, “did you choose your own costume?”

“What are you saying?” Steven Alan Green shot back. “That was my comedy outfit! A 3-piece Japanese designer with trainers. I mean, Doh!”

The search for the ultimate film title: from Abba to Jesus Christ via “Surf Nazis Must Die!”

I saw the Abba movie Mama Mia! on TV at the weekend – I’d missed it in the cinema. The only problem is that, whenever I hear the words Mama Mia! in my head I start singing Queen’s song Bohemian Rhapsody not the Abba song Mama Mia!

Titles are almost more important than content.

I did say “almost”.

When Alex Reid’s not-quite-critically-acclaimed but certainly noticed movie Killer Bitch was being mooted, other titles were talked-of. As it is about a woman forced to kill lots of people, I rather fancied the title:

THE KILLER WORE A BRA

At least it is what it says on the label.

But it was suggested to me that the core audience of young lads and the core cast of a large number of heavies, crime figures, boxers and martial arts exponents might not take kindly to being associated with a movie called The Killer Wore a Bra and I should factor in an element of self-preservation when discussing the choice of title. At the point The Killer Wore a Bra was mentioned, though, we did also semi-seriously discuss the possibility of approaching Carry On movie star Leslie Philips for a role in the film.

Other titles considered included Die, You Bastards, Die! (echoing Sergio Leone’s Duck You Sucker! aka For a Fistful of Dynamite aka Once Upon a Time… the Revolution)… Forced to Kill and Kill Again (slightly echoing Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!)… as well as Bitch on the Rampage… Bloody Bitch From Hell… and Lipstick and Leather.

Lipstick and Leather sounds to me like a classy Italian art film.

I would pay to see it.

I have always wanted to see the movie originally titled Snow White and The Seven Perverts because, after complaints from the Walt Disney Company, the makers changed their title to Some Day My Prince Will Come and anyone who can think up that as a secondary title is OK in my book.

A friend of mine says she actually saw this movie in London in the company of seven Persians but doesn’t remember the movie itself. “This was before the Shah was overthrown,” she says, “so they were a very different type of Persian back then. They were more like the French.”

The other film I have always wanted to see is She Lost Her You-Know-What which was also known as Tower of the Screaming Virgins and was billed in the publicity as “Based on a story by Alexandre Dumas”. This sounded, at the very least, intriguing and was presumably only loosely based on a Dumas  novel.

Anthony Newley’s gobsmackingly OTT Can Hieronymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (which I’ve mentioned more than once before) lived up to its OTT title but, alas, I’m told by someone unfortunate enough to see it that the legendary Troma production Surf Nazis Must Die! failed utterly – it was simply about some surfers with an attitude problem and didn’t equal the kitsch mix of Nazis, breasts and dodgy rock music that Russ Meyer managed in Beyond The Valley of The Dolls.

I am a great fan of the genuinely highly talented writer/director Larry Cohen, whose works include Dial Rat for Terror, the wonderful Q: The Winged Serpent and the utterly bonkers God Told Me To in which a string of people who kill random strangers explain, “God told me to,” and, bugger me, it turns out God actually DID tell them to… and Jesus is reincarnated as a hermaphrodite. (Larry Cohen is a great writer)

I did suggest a follow-up to Killer Bitch called Killer Christ. The outline read:

_____

KILLER CHRIST

The world is full of scum: the pimps, the whores, the conmen, robbers, murderers, psychos and killer bitches. It needs cleaning up. Now time has run out for the scum of the Earth. It’s Apocalypse time! Only one man is big enough for the job. The Big Man is back. He cleared the scum from the Temple in Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago. Now his job is bigger but his firepower is bigger.

This is Death Wish crossed with Terminator.

He is the ultimate vigilante for the 21st Century.

Your wildest dreams were only the beginning…

JESUS IS BACK… AND THIS TIME HE’S MAD AS HELL !

_____

No-one has come back to me on this one.

I live in hope.