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Gas-s-s-s
Gas-s-s-s (on-screen title: Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It.) is a 1970 American post-apocalyptic black comedy film directed by Roger Corman, and produced and released by American International Pictures. The plot follows survivors of an accidental military gas leak involving an experimental agent that kills everyone on Earth over the age of 25 (a cartoon title sequence shows a John Wayne-esque Army General announcing — and denouncing — the "accident"; the story picks up as the last of the victims are dying with social commentary on Medicare and Medicaid). The subtitle alludes to the 1968 quote "it became necessary to destroy the town to save it" attributed to a U.S. Army officer after the Battle of Bến Tre in Vietnam. Robert Corff and Elaine Giftos star, with Ben Vereen, Cindy Williams, Bud Cort, and Talia Shire (credited as "Tally Coppola") in early roles. Country Joe McDonald, who provides the music, makes an appearance as a spokesman for "AM Radio". It was Corman's final film for AIP as director, after a long association (although he would subsequently produce a few more films for the studio). He was unhappy as AIP made several cuts without his approval, including the removal of the final shot in which God comments on the action — a shot Corman regarded as one of the greatest he had made in his life.[2] PlotIn Dallas, at Southern Methodist University, news comes in about a gas which has escaped from a military facility. It starts killing everyone over 25. Hippie Coel meets and falls in love with Cilla. They discover a Gestapo-like police force will be running Dallas and flee into the country. Their car is stolen by some cowboys. Coel and Cilla then meet music fan Marissa, her boyfriend Carlos, a man called Hooper and his girlfriend Coralee. Marissa leaves Carlos, who finds a new girlfriend. The group meet Edgar Allan Poe, who throughout the film drives around on a motorbike with Lenore on the back and a raven on his shoulder, commenting on the action like a Greek chorus. The group then have an encounter with some golf-playing bikers, after which they attend a dance and concert where AM Radio is performing and passing on messages from God. Coel sleeps with a woman called Zoe, but Cilla is not jealous. Coel, Cilla and their friends arrive at a peaceful commune at a pueblo where it seems mankind can start fresh. Then, a football team attacks them. Eventually, God intervenes. Coel and Cilla are reunited with all their friends and there is a big party where everyone gets along. Cast
ProductionDevelopmentGeorge Armitage had met Corman at 20th Century Fox when the latter was making The St Valentine's Day Massacre. Armitage later recalled he wrote a script — "it was called either Carrot Butts or A Christmas Carrot — which had animated cartoon characters, Bugs Bunny and so on, coming to life. It was about the studio systems and all this stuff."[3] Armitage's agent gave the script to Gene [Corman, Roger's brother], who passed it on to Roger, "and he loved it, so they submitted it to UA (United Artists) where they had a deal — Mike Medavoy was just taking over there and he was younger than I was. From there, Roger said: 'Well, that didn't work, why don't we try something else?' Usually he has a title or something and he'll say: 'Go ahead, write something, just keep the title'."[3] Gas-s-s-s was an idea of Corman's, about a world where everybody over 30 had died. Corman later said "my first thought was to do a science fiction film with allegorical overtones."[1] Armitage remembers the concept just being "a sentence, and that's what we went with... He let you make it your own, and I did."[3] Corman said that although "there was some good work in" Armitage's first draft, "the points I was trying to make in the script either did not come through or came through too obviously different parts, and it became less science fiction and more and more a direct liberal left-wing statement picture. I didn't want to be quite that obvious about what I was doing. So I then decided to switch to a comedy, thinking back to Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors."[1] United Artists had financed the writing of the script, but Corman says the studio felt the movie was too risk to finance, as they believed it needed a budget of $2 million. Corman bought the script back off United Artists and decided to finance himself, with a budget of around $300,000.[1] ShootingCorman says filming commenced using a draft that was rewritten constantly throughout the shoot.[2] "Winter was coming and I wanted to do the film", said Corman. "I was going to be shooting in New Mexico. I actually shot in December and to wait one more month would have put me in January and I could not have made the film. To wait till next summer would have dated the material I was dealing with, so I wanted to bring the film out early."[4] Armitage recalls, "We went back in '69 to shoot in New Mexico and Texas. I was the associate producer as well, and we were writing it as we went — which is something that Roger liked to do.[3] "It was a very inexpensive film", said Corman. "It was shot with a skeleton crew, with a cast of almost entirely amateur actors. Only the leads were professionals."[4] Stephanie Rothman had been Corman's assistant in the mid-60s but taken a sabbatical from the industry after making her directorial debut with It's a Bikini World. She went back to work with Corman on Gas-s-s-s as a production manager along with her husband Charles Swartz. "I had a wonderful time working on that film," she later recalled. "I loved it, I really did." She adds the film "was constantly being re-written as we were shooting."[5] The film features a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, an author who provided the stories for several Corman films in the early 1960s. Corman says, "It was actually a second thought when we put Poe in it. We just started putting things in. In the original concept, he wasn't in it. And we just decided to put him in on a motorcycle — it seemed appropriate."[6] "There was some sense of disorganization and experimentation as we went along", says Corman.[4] He claims the film showed:
Corman said there were themes in the film "which go back through all my previous pictures, such as the theme of the destruction of the world which I've played with to a certain extent, and there are some certain political and religious overtones I've dealt with before but I've never put them all together like this. The film became something I firmly believe in."[1] He added in 1971 that Gas-s-s-s-s was:
Filming ultimately took around four weeks. Corman sold the film to American International Pictures for its negative cost.[1] Editing disagreementsCorman and AIP wound up having a major disagreement over the editing of the film. He later wrote in his memoirs:
Corman elaborated, saying:
However, Samuel Z. Arkoff of AIP recalled it differently:
ReceptionCorman says the film opened at the Edinburgh Film Festival and he "got a cable from the organizers of the festival saying, "gasss explodes. Five minutes standing ovation." I thought, "Boy, I've really got one."[4] The film premiered in New York as part of a retrospective on Roger Corman's work.[10] In 1971, Corman stated:
According to Samuel Z. Arkoff, "when Gas-s-s-s was released, it was promoted with ads that proclaimed, 'Invite a few friends over to watch the end of the world.' The picture didn't make any money."[9] Corman later reflected:
It was the last film Corman directed for AIP, and he only made one more movie before a 20-year sabbatical. "A great deal of care went into what I was saying and how I was going to say it", "he said of Gas-s-s-s. "The finished picture does not evidently make all these points. It discourages me and so for a little while I prefer to step away...Directing is very hard and very painful. Producing is easy. I can do it without really thinking about it."[4] Corman did, however, go on to produce Boxcar Bertha and Unholy Rollers for AIP. LegacyGas-s-s-s found a fresh audience on late night television in the 1980s. In 2005, it was issued on DVD as a Midnite Movies double feature with Wild in the Streets (1968), another AIP movie. Filmink argued "the film’s a mess, to be told, but often funny and fascinating for Corman watchers because it summarises so much of his career until that date: there’s references to Westerns, Edgar Allan Poe, the apocalypse, sex, progressive politics, bikers, race relations, rape."[11] SoundtrackA soundtrack for the film was released in 1970 on American International Records. It was produced by Barry Melton. Country Joe and The Fish minus Country Joe appear as "Johnny & The Tornados". The band Joy Of Cooking appears as The Gourmet's Delight. The tracks were:
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