Captain's Blog pt. 9 : And Still We Sing the Song of Shatner

What constitutes a great performance vs. what constitutes good acting is a debate for the ages. I'm not sure that Bruce Campbell or Arnold Schwarzennegar are "great actors," but their respective performances in Evil Dead 2 and Total Recall are unquestionably great performances.

Okay, so a distinction should perhaps be drawn between "performances I'd rather watch" and "performances the world would agree are great." But it's always been a gray area for me. Certainty over "great acting" always amuses me. So many factors come together that influence such a thing, and there is no hard and fast criteria to which one can point.

Let's take an actor who is commonly referred to as "great," Dustin Hoffman. What makes Dustin's performance in Midnight Cowboy great and Bruce/Arnold's campy? All are equally cartoonish. Is it the context? i.e. Midnight Cowboy is a "serious film," and Evil Dead 2 and Total Recall are horror/ sci-fi? Probably it is just as simple as that.

Al Pacino is "great" in The Godfather pt. 2 but "campy" in Dick Tracy. And, well, everything since.

But that's too arbitrary for me. For one, why shouldn't a performer pitch his or her performance to the spirit of the film? Two, so many factors come together to determine a film's context that it doesn't seem kosher to take context as some objective standard. And three, it leads to some weird conclusions - Harrison Ford is "great" in Regarding Henry but not as Indiana Jones? Raiders is a masterpiece, but Schindler's List is the "great" film? You see what I'm getting at, I'm sure.

Which brings us to the enduring enigma of William Shatner.

When I was growing up, it was generally a given that William Shatner was if not the worst actor on the planet, the definition of "ham." Some people still believe this. But let's keep in mind a few things: 1) People have been talking about his portrayal of Captain Kirk for several decades with no end in sight. A performance with that kind of longevity isn't an accident. Each generation seems to get even more of a kick out of it than the last. So, Shatner may be the hammiest ham who ever hammed, he might be the worst actor that ever acted, whatever you say; I'm not here to tell you the guy's career has been unfairly evaluated, particularly with some of the roles I'll cover below. But let's just get this out of the way up front: if your list of Greatest Marriages of Actor and Role does not include Shatner-to-Kirk, you're doing it wrong. 2) Shatner embraced full-time self-parody in the 90s, which turned out to be a shrewd career move, to say the least. It became okay to enjoy Shatner ironically, although Trekkies and Trekkers had been doing that for years. And 3) As with Bruce and Ahhnold, I really don't care whether or not they're considered "good actors," their presence in something ensures my interest. 

(For that matter, I prefer Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman in Dick Tracy over many of their so-called "serious performances." Do I think this way because I grew up on Captain Kirk? I wonder.)

 

I don't want to go too far down this path. Let the brainiacs in China figure it out. What I know is that from the late 1970s to as recently as last night, I am more comprehensively entertained by William  Shatner than just about anyone. Like Stan Lee, he's been an Elder Statesman of the Pop Culture Omniverse to me since I was a kid, and also like Smilin' Stan, the world will seem forever askew to me when they shuffle off their mortal coils.

Not to be morbid or anything, just saying, they're old; Stan's 90, Shatner's 82.

I won't attempt a full overview of Shatner's career, here, though that would be a fun blogging project. (It would definitely need a grandiose title, like "The Dialectic of Agony," a title once proposed by a friend of mine for a project that never materialized; would work great for a Shatner project, though!) As with all things Trek, the internet already abounds with such things, like the apparently-and-unfortunately defunct "Shat Attack" blog.

But let's have a look at some of his non-Trek projects that have entertained me over the years, starting with...

I originally bought this on VHS, and it was titled Shame. The cover was Shatner, his sleeves rolled up and his arms outstretched, before a burning cross, with the tagline: "Small Time Drifter Stirs Up Big Trouble." 

"You get your money from MOSCOW!"

Directed by Roger Corman and written by Charles Beaumont (of Twilight Zone fame) this is actually a legitimate cult classic. It's a bit hokey, sure, but so are the "racism is bad, mmkay?" Very Special Episodes of TV I grew up with in the 1980s. And considering The Intruder was produced in 1962, i.e. when people were actually getting lynched, fire-hosed, and thrown in jail for advocating Civil Rights, I'm much more forgiving of its hokey aspects. It's the same gulf of difference that makes Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" (1975) a more salient protest over Rubin Carter's imprisonment than  The Hurricane with Denzel Washington (1999.)

Shatner plays Adam Cramer, a traveling demagogue who represents "the Quill and Pen society." He sows discord and almost succeeds in getting a young black student lynched for a rape he did not commit; he also almost gets away with a rape (or close enough to it) he actually committed himself. 

 

 

It's more than a little jarring (and uncomfortably amusing) to see Shatner pantomiming Hitler as he harangues the crowd, right down to Der Fuhrer's arm movements and vocal cadence. If you've never seen this, recall any of Kirk's big speeches from TOS and replace the words with incendiary racial rhetoric and you get the idea. Those viewers who cringe at the non-hip-hop/Tarantino use of the n-word, be forewarned; there's an awful lot of that.

Next up, Shatner's turns on The Twilight Zone, "Nick of Time" (1960) and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (1963) both written by Richard Matheson.

During this period of his career, Shatner imbued each and every performance (even his exceedingly-brief appearance in Judgment at Nuremberg) with an all-or-nothing I-have-one-speed-and-it-is-WARP-NINE energy. (This would of course reach its high water mark with Trek.) Highly enjoyable. Ditto for his turn on The Outer Limits.

From its wiki: "After completing the first manned mission to orbit Venus, astronaut Jeff Barton (Shatner) returns to Earth with recurring nightmares and an increasing inability to stay warm."

"Barton's condition continues to worsen and is accompanied by a peculiar webbing of his fingers. Only after his nightmares become more vivid does he recall an unrevealed alien encounter in the Venusian atmosphere."

"Barton's doctors suspect the astronaut had been genetically affected by his mission, and they then struggle to treat and cure him before his mutations completely take over."

Great episode. The Outer Limits never disappoints. Its creator, Leslie Stevens, showrunner/ruiner for various other series, directed another legitimate cult-classic from this phase of Shatner's career, the beautifully shot and truly unsettling Incubus (1966.)

 

 

 

There's a pretty good write-up of this troubled production here, but for our purposes it's enough to note:

Goat-head / black mass...

...and Esperanto. 

Really a great slice of the 1960s, here - it feels more like a Jean Cocteau film than something by the guy who would eventually give us Buck Rogers dancing to space disco with a diminutive robot voiced by Mel Blanc. (Something I am in no way knocking; I support anything with "space disco" attached to it.) Incubus could share a bill with Rosemary's Baby or The Innocents and no one would bat an eye.

The same cannot be said for Alexander the Great (1968.)

Obviously proof of something cosmic: this is one of two times Shatner has played Alexander the Great.

Shatner told some funny stories about working with this horse when I saw him last year on his "Shatner's World" tour.

I'm not sure if this was a tv movie or intended as a pilot for an ongoing Alexander series. It's referred to as both/ either in several places. But it didn't catch on. It also starred Adam West and John Cassavettes, weirdly enough:

I sat down and watched this start-to-finish, and it's actually not terrible. White Comanche (also 1968) IS probably terrible, but its combination of WTF-plot/execution, James Cotten, and Shatner's dual role kept me chuckling and shaking my head throughout.

From its imdb: "William Shatner plays two roles: cowboy Johnny Moon and his ruthless Indian twin brother, Notah. Notah likes peyote and gets the crazy idea that he's the Comanche messiah sent to lead the Comanche nation against the white man but more specifically the dusty desert town of Rio Hondo. Moon, estranged from his brother, decides to stop Notah either by words or by bullets."

The production value is not great, but damn! That description is classic.

Gives me a whole new dimension of appreciation for "The Paradise Syndrome.

The end of the sixties saw Shatner's career go into a lull. When Star Trek went off the air, he was so identified with the role of Captain Kirk that networks were reluctant to cast him in anything but supporting roles. His divorce from Gloria Rand, though, was negotiated while he was getting his Trek leading man salary, and to make his child support and alimony payments, he spent the time between TOS and ST: TMP taking pretty much anything he could.

Such as John Adams in the TV movie Swing Out, Sweet Land with John Wayne, Ann-Margaret, and Lucille Ball (!)

More symmetry - not the only Trek veteran to play the 2nd POTUS!

In addition to numerous guest turns on tv shows, Shatner continued to be cast in films. Among them, Impulse (1974.)

There are occasional glimpses of the Shatner-madness we all know and love, but mainly, he comes off as a guy who is earning money that will go immediately to lawyers and alimony.

It's notable for this absolutely crazy muscle shirt he's wearing, above, and some of its supporting cast:

Harold Sakata? Oddjob? As Karate Pete?

Incidentally, Karate Pete gets to tell Shatner's character: "Oh Matt, you all the time horny." So, there's that.

And Ruth Roman!

Not a classic by any definition.

The Devil's Rain (1975) is much better. 

I make this my facebook cover photo at least once or twice a year.

From that link, above, "After his eyeless father melts before him and his mother (Ida Lupino! WTF) is kidnapped by mysterious cloaked madmen, William Shatner dons his straw cowboy hat and heads into the desert to battle faiths with Ernest Borgnine's Dark Master." I mean, if that combination of names and ideas doesn't make you scramble to see this, I don't know what to tell you.

All kidding aside, this actually isn't a bad little film. Maybe Shatner was turning a corner here...

Alas, it was short-lived. (1978)

Directed by John "Bud" Cardos, Shatner plays Dr. Robert "Rack" Hansen and - well, for f**k's sake, who cares! These pics tell you all you need to know.

I first saw this as part of a triple bill that included the (excellent) remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, starring Leonard Nimoy, and the (not so excellent) Night of the Lemus, starring DeForest Kelley. So, that was a fun day.

Around this time, as I'm sure all of you have watched a thousand times (or is it just me?) Shatner found time to "interpret" the Elton John/ Bernie Taupin classic "Rocket Man."

Sorry for the "Play" triangle, there.

Man. Let me say that again: MAN! That never fails to make me giggle uncontrollably and gape slack-jawed at my computer screen. I used to sit next to a guy at a previous job who did a spot-on impersonation of this, usually when I was on the phone with one of the lawyers. I got a lot of use out of the mute button on such occasions.

He also "appears" as the face of the mask worn by Michael Myers in Halloween. Allegedly. I know some swear this is an urban legend or joke of some kind.

The 80s saw Shatner's fortunes revitalized with the big-screen Trek movies, but a few of his non-Trek projects are worth mentioning:

Arguably his first foray into self-parody in Airplane 2

and what comes off as parody (particularly the wigs and coifs) to 21st century eyes in TJ Hooker.

In the 90s and in the 00s, something clicked in Shatner's head, it seems, and he began a still-lucrative phase of his career playing himself in various projects. The best of which is arguably Free Enterprise (1998.)

"No one will ever believe this..."

He also began an ambitious series of non-fiction projects, among them some of Trek's best memoirs (which I'll get to next time) 

Here, he interviews Nimoy for his often surprisingly insightful Shatner's Raw Nerve for the Biography channel.

He and Nimoy share recollections in this underrated DVD, as well. One of the stranger things I learned from this is that Nimoy started wearing a "death watch" at some point over the last 15 years, which counts down to his probable date of expiration. (Still ticking, thankfully; I wonder if he still looks at it.)

(2015 Edit. Yaarg.)

The end of the twentieth century saw Shatner returning to the world of music in a collaboration with Ben Folds, Fear of Pop.

I first heard this in 1997 when it was a limited-release EP (vinyl), but Shatner performed this live on Late Night with Conan O'Brien when the CD was released in 1998. It's actually quite a cool little piece of music.

Shatner's first adventure in recording was this absolute-classic from the late 60s, featuring truly warped versions of "Mr. Tamborine Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," as well as the St. Crispin's Day speech from Henry V, where he lets rip an epic "King Geeeeeeoooooorrrrrrggggeeeeeeee....!!" that defies adequate description.

He's collaborated with Ben Folds on a few other projects, as well, the best of which is 2004's Has-Been, which features the kind of song-parody you'd think it would (a cover of Pulp's "Common People," and his song-rant with Henry Rollins (!) and Adrian Belew (!) "I Can't Get Behind That") and some unexpectedly poignant reflections on mortality ("You'll Have Time") and fame ("Real.") This project has borne sweet fruit, including another collaboration with Ben Folds (2011's Seeking Major Tom) and William Shatner's Gonzo Ballet.

In 2004, he added one more iconic tv character to his credit:

Denny Crane, from The Practice and Boston Legal.

A show I never really took to (in fact, the episode where Candy Bergen is taken hostage by a nerdy Monty-Python-spouting lunatic is among my most personally reviled hours of TV, ever) but the chemistry between Shatner and Spader was always fun.

It also deserves some credit for splicing together a story with an old episode of Son of the Defender, one of Shatner's 60s TV efforts.

2013 finds Shatner still very much active, touring with his one-man show "Shatner's World" which I caught a little over a year ago when it came to Chicago.

I originally hadn't planned on going. I've been a fairly consistent consumer of Shatner's memoirs and anecdotes, so I figured it wouldn't be worth the price tag. What more could I possibly learn? Turns out: quite a bit. 

I never go to shows or conventions or anything like that; more power to those who do, of course, it's just not my thing. But sitting there, watching and listening to this guy whose work I've been devouring and whose cadence I've been imitating for the better part of my thirty-eight years was not just a blast but also quite surreal. Someone once likened watching Marlon Brando's performance in The Freshman to "Seeing one of the Mount Rushmore heads go by in a parade float." 

"Shatner's World" was a little like that, only exponentially more awesome. 

~

NEXT: "Where No Fan Has Gone Before."