Zorgon: The H-Bomb Beast From Hell

Shoot the Piano Player

By / / 1960, 1960s / Leave a Comment

French New Wave films are an area that I’ve woefully overlooked.

While I’ve seen a handful — La Jetée, Bob le Flambeur, Alphaville, and (thanks to film club) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg — I haven’t seen the essential movies.

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Shoot the Piano Player

Where to watch: Just Watch

(Curiously, one list of New Wave films included François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451. I love the movie, but don’t consider it New Wave.)

So much has been written about the New Wave and Shoot the Piano Player that it doesn’t make sense to rehash things. But a few thoughts came to mind while watching the movie and an accompanying interview with Truffaut from 1965.

During the chase at the end of the movie, one of the gangsters, Momo (played by Claude Mansard), twirls his pistol before firing a fatal shot. It’s incongruous with the seriousness of the scene.

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Zorgon: The H-Bomb Beast From Hell

By / / 1970s, 1972 / Leave a Comment

My pick for this week’s Criterion Channel movie club was a no-budget short, Zorgon: The H-Bomb Beast From Hell, from 1972.

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Zorgon: The H-Bomb Beast From Hell

Where to watch: Just Watch

Why a short? After everyone has had a movie pick, our Friday night film club has a short-film festival, as it were. Before starting a new cycle of picks, we have an interstitial week where everyone suggests a short film, typically no longer than 15 minutes.

The silent Zorgon runs about 9 minutes, so it gets right to the action. Someone — or some thing — is killing people in a Southern California valley. When the police aren’t acting quickly enough, neighbors band together to find the killer. A la Scooby-Doo, the villain is a throwback humanoid with legs that awkwardly split into feet and tentacles.

According to IMDB, the movie was a class project for director Kevin Fernan, who also played one of Zorgon’s first victims. (It also appears that this was his only film production.)

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