The Manipulator (1971)

I love this movie so much

Very Cool!!!

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

The Manipulator (1971) * (out of 4)B.J. Lang (Mickey Rooney) is a former make-up man who has finally snapped. He kidnaps actress Carlotta (Luana Anders) and holds her hostage so that she can view his bizarre rants and attempts at acting.THE MANIPULATOR is a really, really awful movie. There are countless awful things about it and in fact there are so many that I'm really shocked that the movie isn't better known by the Bad Cinema Crowd. When I say this film is awful it's probably an understatement because this is mind-numbing bad at times but I must also admit that there's one terrific thing in the film and that's Rooney. He gives such a wonderful performance here that it's really rather sad that it's lost in such a bad movie.If you go through Rooney's career then you know that he had a major dry spot in it and there's no question that the 1970s really weren't a great decade for the once "A" list actor. He was taking various roles for the money and quite often he would appear in films that paid for a day's work. That's not the case here because he's clearly the star and there's not a frame of the film that doesn't have him in it. This character is truly a crazy, raving and rating nut that gives the actor a great chance to show his range and he does a terrific job with it. It's really a tour-de-force performance that has the actor showing off a variety of ranges and he nails them. Anders is also decent in her role as is Keenan Wynn in his brief part.With that said, all of the performances are wasted in this horrid mess of a movie. For starters, the direction by Yabo Yablonsky is among the very worst that you're ever going to see because there's absolutely no style here. In fact, there's no comedy, there's no drama, there's no suspense and there's really nothing at all. This is about as ugly and as flat of a movie that you're ever going to see and even the greatness of Rooney's performance pretty much gets sucked dry of any major power because of how poorly it's filmed. Even worse is the fact that the story just never makes a bit of sense as there's nothing going on but rants and performances.THE MANIPULATOR is a film that should be better seen and known. By those who enjoy bad movies.

***THIS COMMENT DEFINITELY HAS SPOILERS***Mickey Rooney is one of my favorite actors, so of course I was thrilled to watch this movie. It would be a different movie for him to do. Well, I will say this for him, it was definitely a different role for him, but the movie was a huge let down. It was twisted, strange, and the plot seemed to be going nowhere. I just can't for the life of me figure out why Mickey Rooney would do a movie like this. The only reason I can come up with is maybe he wanted to do a different role. Something he doesn't usually do. But he could've done something better than this mess of a movie. I just remember after watching the film, saying to myself, "Why on Earth did you do this movie, Mickey. Why?"What the movie is basically about is, Mickey Rooney plays B.J. Lang, a crazed old man who believes he's the greatest director of all time, while in actuality he's just a deluded has-been stumbling through an abandoned building. Looking particularly haggard and sporting a scraggly beard. He's also keeping a young woman (Luana Anders) captive in his warehouse, and keeps referring to her as "Carlotta", his personal starlet. Tied to a wheelchair and pleading for food. ("I'm hungry, Mr. Lang," she begs repeatedly, until he finally spoons her some baby food) It's basically a two-person movie, except for Keenan Wynn's 5-minute cameo. He plays Old Charlie, an old man who lives in the warehouse. Luana Anders bumps into him while he's napping, while attempting to escape the crazed Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney finds the two of them together and he rehearses a line from a play maniacally, and kills Old Charlie with a sword.Later on, Mickey Rooney lets Luana Anders try to escape. She managed to get out of the warehouse, in the pouring rain, and climbs into a vacant car. She locks herself in (stupidly) and Mickey Rooney finds her, smashes the car windows with a garbage can and he gets her out of the car. He brings her back into the warehouse, which he begins to express his love for her. He kisses her, and she begins to laugh at him, which doesn't go over too well. He starts to go crazy, screaming "Stop laughing at me!" and starts talking about dying. He then plunges a sword into his stomach, ultimately killing himself. (Using the same sword in which he kills Keenan Wynn's character).This movie was just totally ridiculous though. At one point in the movie, he puts on some lipstick and eye shadow, and begins talking about the days he used to put makeup on Marilyn Monroe. It was obvious he was trying to be like Marilyn in that scene. And Mickey also spends the second half of the movie with a fake Cyrano nose.The only credit I can give this movie, is it was interesting seeing Mickey Rooney play a much different role than he usually plays. Other than that, the movie really isn't worth watching. I was looking forward to seeing it so much and it let me down. I give this movie a 4/10. The 4 is for Mickey Rooney's role in the movie.~Shawn~

The legendary Mickey Rooney gives an incredibly wild, hammy and over-the-top full-tilt insane, inspired and uninhibited performance as B.J. Lang, a deranged and delusional psychotic washed-up Hollywood has-been who thinks he's a great successful big-time film director ala Orson Welles. Lang relentlessly torments and terrorizes hapless lovely aspiring actress Carlotta (the beautiful Luana Anders) on a dingy and decrepit abandoned studio back lot: he rants and raves to himself with rip-snorting gonzo aplomb, spoon feeds her baby food, impersonates an effeminate make-up artist (Rooney sports bright red lipstick and gaudy blue eye shadow!), pretends to have a fatal massive heart attack, and occasionally breaks into these astounding impromptu a cappella renditions of "Chattanooga Choo Choo" which he heartily belts out in this pained hoarse'n'wheezy croak of a voice.Writer/director Yabo Yablonsky whips up one awesomely aberrant and idiosyncratic marvel of an outré indie avant garde experimental cinematic meditation on dreams, delusions, dementia and the fine line between unattainable fantasy and bitter reality. Yablonsky deftly creates and maintains a clammy, creepy and claustrophobic weirded-out mood that sucks the viewer into the stunningly surreal and suffocating anything-goes nightmarish atmosphere which proves to be both jarring and riveting in comparable measure. Baird Bryant's garishly stylized cinematography uses every fancy artsy trick in the book: crazily tilted camera angles, distorted fish-eye lens, strenuous slow motion, artificially sped up film, wonky zoom-in close-ups and startling freeze frames. Gil Melle's groovy, droning, atonal psychedelic acid jazz score constitutes as another significant asset. Keenan Wynn briefly pops up in an embarrassingly thankless bit part as a mumbling drunken bum who Rooney runs through with a rapier. While Rooney clearly dominates the picture with his bracingly berserk and bravura acting, Anders still nonetheless holds her own quite well and gets to perform a major crack-up scene where she really cranks up the astonishing eye-rolling histrionics to 10 plus. A splendidly screwy and singular one-of-a-kind piece of sheer celluloid lunacy.

Cinematic travesty is right! This film is rancid and putrid and boring and so God awful! Mickey Rooney plays some mental case that thinks he is making movies back in 1947 in an old props room where he instructs his "actress" Luana Anders in Cyrano De Bergerac. All 90 minutes basically takes place in this "loft" that really looks like nothing more than the backstage of a small theater. Watching this film was excrutiating torture as we get to see Mickey Rooney give the worst performance of his career, as well as Luana Anders! Rooney is barking out orders to stagehands that aren't there one moment, then he is dancing around and singing "Pardon Me Boys, Is That the Chattanooga Choochoo." He is painful to watch as in one scene he wears make-up and looks like a cheap hooker on the Vegas Strip(based on his looks...one real CHEAP hooker to boot!). Most of the time he looks like some maniacal gnome. Some of the scenes even have speeded scenes so we can see him dance about in fast motion no less. Anders is just as bad(at least looks good) as we never really can tell what her motivation is or what she really feels. This is just one real reel bad film. Director Yabo Yablinsky deserves most of the blame as he forfeits plot structure, characterization, pacing, motivation, and all those things that are a part of a good film for nonsense, halluciatory dream sequences that mean absolutely nothing, and odd, repetitive camera angles. Whew! What a stinker! Yabo is one yahoo!!!