Dynamite Chicken (1970)

Bizarre, Radical, not particularly funny, but somewhat interesting

I had never heard of this movie before but it looked somewhat interesting and was only three bucks so I decided to take a chance on it. This film is sort of like a late 60's guerilla precursor to later parody compilations like The Groove Tube and Kentucky Fried Movie although it is nowhere nearly as funny or as well done as either. The whole point of this "free-form" film escaped me other than it was apparently primarily intended to mock the "establishment" circa 1969. It is a random assortment of brief sketches, monologues, film clips, musical performances, and "Hippy" political statements. There's also a fair amount of female nudity on display (if this film were rated it would be rated R). A young Richard Pryor does a number of brief monologues and a couple of sketch comedy groups (one including a young Fred Willard) do their thing, more political statements are made, there are some montages of old movies and commercials, and there are a couple of running gags which aren't that funnny. There are also some "man in the street" interviews (primarily about what the American flag means to various people).

Overall this thing is pretty disjointed and doesn't make a whole lot of sense...but the DVD is cheap and possibly worth the purchase price simply as a time capsule of what the radical left was thinking around 1969-70 and also as a glimpse into what underground comedy amounted to at the time.

The picture and sound quality are pretty lackluster and the DVD is obviously a direct transfer from a rather beat up print of this low budget film but is still watchable. I can't imagine anyone is ever going to bother to clean this up any further so what you see is what you get...again the price is pretty low, so taking that into account, it's okay.

Certainly not for everyone (unless you still live on a commune somewhere and/or want to watch a nun do a strip tease) but I have to admit it was somewhat interesting from a historical perspective as a filmed artifact of the late 60's (as seen through the eyes of the Woodstock generation) and as a film that was clearly meant to "Stick it to the man".
July 30, 2007

Dynamite Chicken

It was very not anything at all I did not enjoy this one. I am not sure what it was all about..... May 14, 2007

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