Great Exudations

What follows is a little known story in Hollywood circles that I feel compelled to share. During the spate of fantastical horror films in the 1970’s, there was a folk troubadour who made the rounds from Universal to MGM to Warner Bros. to United Artists and back. He called himself Tommy Treacle and said he hailed from back east, though details of his life are sparse. He carried a weather-beaten acoustic guitar and always wore a tattered brown tee-shirt with the visage of Jim Croce, therein telegraphing his musical leanings (he also sported a tattoo that just say “Hey”). He would quietly pitch his songs as potential themes, with a special predilection for fright-films, saying he wanted to “pour a sack of sugar into Tinseltown’s bottomless vat of vinegar” (he called it the “treacle-down” effect). In this blog post, I present three of his songs that were summarily rejected by the studios as being wildly inappropriate to both mood and theme. It was said that on being dismissed, he would just smile, shoulder his guitar, and whistle a strange tune — one described as being somehow both bright and mournful — as he climbed into his orange El Camino with vanity plates exclaiming LOVE to the wide wide world. In all three audio clips, you will hear the film trailer followed by Mr. Treacle’s proposed theme song. Enjoy (rated PG).

I consider the 70’s to be the highpoint of the horror film trailer. I was totally freaked by the preview for “Alien” (1979). The one for “It’s Alive” was enough to keep me away from the theater (although I think that had more to do with it being a knock-off of “Rosemary’s Baby”). Now they seem mostly funny and so totally over-the-top, but in the best possible way. “Frogs” was an incredibly lame attempt at horror as environmental warning, even if prescient. Co-incidentally, my sister’s nickname is Frog, which she fully embraces, and it arose from her showing early expertise at swimming the breaststroke. She has numerous celebratory frog tchotchkes and keepsakes at home, mostly gifts. My wife, on the other hand, cannot stand the croaking of frogs and gets semi-freaked out when I threaten to play the above film trailer. Alas, there’s room in this weird world for both extremes and all those in-between. That’s, at least, what Tommy Treacle would say.

Growing up in the DC area, it was a right of passage to walk up and down the infamous “Exorcist steps” at the western end of Georgetown (near Dixie Liquor!). If memory serves, I did it once with some friends and found it a bit anti-climactic. However, at a certain time of day, you might see the Georgetown crew team spiritedly running up and down those stairs, which sounds truly demonic. Come to think of it, those stairs may have been the actual cause of death of Father Merrin (played by Max von Sydow), who was shown earlier in the film taking nitroglycerin for his heart condition. You see, everything converges in the end. And aren’t we all, for each other and on every given day, exorcists?!