Carny (Robert Kaylor, USA, 1980)
While hunting for Elisha Cook, Jr-films, I came across “Carny” from 1980. Directed by Robert Kaylor, this film is a wonderful little gem about a carnival and some of its main people. The story is all gritty carnival flesh and blood, and its carny code of honor stands as proud as it did already in Tod Browning’s “Freaks” from 1932.
Frankie (Gary Busey) and Patch (Robbie Robertson) share a trailer, life, and girls on the road. Frankie’s job is being “Bozo” – the encaged clown that falls into a tub of water if you hit a certain target with a baseball. As that seems hard for the drunken visitors, Frankie valiantly eggs them on by insults galore.
Jack of all trades Patch is destined to take over the carnival one day, and goes from stall to stall, attraction to attraction, collecting all the “rubes” money, and paying off local poobahs and crooks.
There are swirling merry-go-rounds, lotteries, a freak show, a girly tent, and more. In many a muddy field in nowheresville, USA, the carnival brings a prurient titillation and relief for the entire family. And the carnies proudly provide this service of temporary dissociation and escapism in exchange for some of normality’s hard-earned dollars.
Into this world of sleazy magic steps Donna (Jodie Foster), and she quickly wants to join in. She hooks up with Frankie, and travels along for many unwelcoming miles of rednecked rural retrogression. She wants to work, and tries dancing in the girly tent. But when it gets too “hot” in there, and she tries stripping before she’s ready, Frankie and Patch (who dislikes her being around) decide that she should instead sweet talk the rubes in a lottery stall – which she does successfully; especially to the ladies of the lady-orientation.
There is seemingly always pressure from the locals – if not from corrupt politicians, then from bona fide criminals. When one particular gangster doesn’t get what he wants, he has his band of hoodlums thrash the carnival with a truck, which leads to the death of the carnival’s own granddad, “On Your Mark” (superbly played by Cook, Jr).
But… It should come as no surprise: Don’t mess with the carnies! On the following night, Donna becomes a volunteer honeytrap for the thug who drove the car. As he’s about to rape her, Patch slices the thug’s throat with a razor. A clean sweep of justice. His body is then displayed in a funhouse manner to the main gangster, inside the freak show tent. The gangster understandably freaks out and runs away. Justice has been served, and heals all other wounds (such as that between Frankie and Patch – over Donna, of course). The carnival exists in its own universe, on its own terms; honoring the code, hustling the rubes and just shuffling along.
This film really is a gem, because it so suavely combines the grit and the magic; the sordid and the emotional. Elisha Cook as a slightly demented old timer carny? Woodrow Parfrey as a barker? Gary Busey as a clown? Jodie Foster in lingerie on stage, in front of neanderthal yokels? And The Band’s Robbie Robertson as a righteous carny hand? What’s not to love?
Interesting to note is that Robertson co-produced the film, and provided real fodder for the script. At age 14, he worked on a carnival as a freak show assistant. Probably a good learning experience before entering the world of rock’n’roll.
This is an unlikely film – a cinematic spruce goose – and it’s easy to see how it could slip between the chairs of posterity. But that, to me, just makes it even more grand – once you’ve found it and savored it.
“Carny” is sleazy, convincing, and profoundly prurient in its sublime simplicity, while at the same time displaying some stellar performances from basically everyone in the cast. To combine old Hollywood dark side royalty like Elisha Cook, Jr and Woodrow Parfrey with a tender apparition like Jodie Foster is either an auspicious fluke or a stroke of genius – or both. And sandwiched in-between all of this, the buddy drama of two freewheeling hustlers; one armed with a clown face and a foul mouth, and one with a bundle of dirty bills and a sharp razor. A very agreeable combination. “Step right in, folks!”
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