Titles can be difficult things, and ‘70s cinema often struggled with them. Sometimes the movies were saddled with the title of their source material – The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972) or Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues (1972) – while others used their titles as an expression of irreverence, like Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971). And then there’s the third type, the movies where the titles go out of their way to imply a different genre. Slither is not a snake-themed thriller – that would be either Sssssss (1973) or 1981’s Venom1 – and it isn’t the James Gunn comedy-horror from 2006. No, this Slither is – brace for it – a knockabout crime comedy.
Opening to the strains of “Happy Days Are Here Again”, featuring the musical stylings of Richard B. Shull, we find a couple of recently-released cons Harry Moss (Shull) and Dick Kanipsia (James Caan) on a train headed to freedom. Dick’s keen to hit the road, but Harry talks him into “one beer” before he heads out. However, their celebration is cut short when Harry takes a sniper’s bullet to the gut. Before Harry blows up his house, he gives Dick a lead on a missing cache of $312,000: go see Barry Fenaka and give him a name he’s been waiting for, “Vincent Palmer”. So begins Dick’s picaresque into the weird side of America, a journey that will see him join forces with a swing-obsessed embezzler and part-time bandleader (Peter Boyle) and his meek wife (Louise Lasser), as well as a pill-popping, diner-robbing free spirit named Kitty Kopetzky (Sally Kellerman). But they’re not alone in their pursuit of the cash: a mysterious and intimidating RV – the automotive love child of Elon Musk and Anish Kapoor – appears to be following them every step of the way.
Slither has been likened to John Huston’s Beat the Devil (1953), an oddity of a movie more concerned with eccentricity than plot, and one which relies heavily on the collective charm of its cast stuck in one place. Slither has more movement – in fact, the entire movie is one protracted pursuit through the dustier parts of California (rendered in non-descript sandy tones by cinematographer László Kovács) – but it’s less a chase than a wander, meandering its way from Pismo Beach to Susanville by way of Stockton, taking in such thrilling sights as a trailer park, a bingo game, a laundrette, a roadside vegetable stand, and a number of gas stations. It’s as if someone decided to remake It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), but got bored at the outline stage. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because there is a certain oddball appeal in Slither’s wholehearted commitment to setting itself in direct opposition to genre expectations, not just those of the comedy-thriller, but also the counterculture road movie.
This irreverence stems directly from the director Howard Zieff and writer W.D. Richter. Zieff was one of the first directors to make the leap from television commercials to features, and one of the few that became known for his work in advertising: in 1967, Time magazine called him the “Master of the Mini-Ha-Ha” and a leading practitioner of the indirect sell, in which the commercial stands alone as a thirty-second (usually comic) movie. His usual style was deadpan-wacky - whether it was the muffed takes of “Mamma mia, that’s a spicy meatball!”, the chaos of driving instruction (“What truck?”), or ranchers using a VW Beetle to marshal their cattle2. He had a touch of the Preston Sturges to him – Harry Moss appears to be dressed as old-fashioned flim-flam man, there’s a scene in the back of an Airstream trailer that calls to mind Sullivan’s Travels (1941), Zieff would go on to direct a 1984 remake of Unfaithfully Yours – and Slither shares both the reliance on the funny moment and Sturges’s antipathy towards genre convention. He also can’t seem to help himself when it comes to the Airstream, with a scene that’s almost a commercial in itself as Barry extols the virtues of the trailer to Dick.3
He is well matched with the twenty-six-year-old W.D. Richter. Slither was his first screenplay, a precursor to the kind of idiosyncratic writing that would become his stock in trade in the stellar remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and (one of my absolute favourite Carpenter movies) Big Trouble in Little China (1986)4. The tone of the movie is resolutely unpredictable, switching from chase thriller to crime comedy to hangout movie and back again, but these switches are so gentle they’re almost harmonious. The dialogue sparkles without being obviously comic, and the comedy tends towards the witty rather than the broad. That isn’t to say Slither isn’t funny, but it’s a movie of funny moments – Barry trying to retrieve a parking ticket, Alex Rocco’s whole deadpan bit with the ice cream – rather than a bust-a-gut comedy. The closest it comes is the cracking scene at the bingo game, but even that is tempered with a sense of mild peril. Even the prerequisite chase scene takes place with two RVs and an Airstream-pulling Chevy Impala. As for the title, well, that’s kind of explained at the start of his screenplay with the following weird wee poem:
Dick knew Harry. Someone killed Harry. Harry and Barry were friends. So Dick met Barry. Then someone got Barry too. And now he's after Dick.
Slither.
We all have to sooner or later.
Clear as mud? Good. Let’s move on.
For the most part, the fine cast know the brief. James Caan is an affable, slightly dim but ultimately decent former car thief, maintaining a befuddled calm in the unfolding chaos, a direct contrast to his previous role as Sonny Corleone. He has some nice character moments, like almost punching out a jogger because he’s approaching too fast, and is a solid straight man when needed. Peter Boyle and Louise Lasser could do their parts standing on their heads, playing into their usual personas as thick-headed blowhard and timid weirdo respectively. And any movie that features Allen Garfield and Alex Rocco (not to mention Len “Uncle Leo” Lesser) gets a pass on the casting. Unfortunately, Sally Kellerman appears to struggle; hers is a part that demands a level of kook that she’s too droll to provide, and she constantly appears to be fighting the myriad quirks (maybe a witch, definitely a pill-popper, might be dangerous, definitely a burnout) that make up her character. But this is a small gripe; the other extreme would have made the film unwatchable.
Slither enjoyed decent if slightly baffled reviews from most critics, many of whom made a point of highlighting both Zieff’s direction and Caan’s performance, while noting that the script runs out of steam towards the end. I don’t particularly agree with this latter point – Slither holds together remarkably well for a movie that is a series of events rather than a plot, even considering two characters (Kitty and Barry) disappear from the movie for about a half-hour each5, and its final scene, where everything is explained (the money was invested in a children’s camp that failed, and “the only thing we got left is those vans over there”) is a nice anticlimax with a satisfying punchline (Barry is over the moon at the prospect of owning land). If it appears lightweight, it’s by design – Slither is actively working against (and taking the piss out of) the kind of exasperatingly paranoid counterculture movies that were in vogue, and as such feels both remarkably modern and deeply old-fashioned. While it’s never going to make any Best of the ‘70s list, Slither is still weird and wonderful enough to warrant a look-see.
Next Up: “The story of a girl who was stolen … not just for money!”
A movie that boasts a veritable buffet of larger-than-life character actors: Klaus Kinski, Sterling Hayden, Sarah Miles, Nicol Williamson and Oliver Reed. According to director Piers Haggard, Reed spent most of his time trying to get a rise out of Kinski, which must have been fun to be around.
MGM apparently planned a whole promotional campaign around the Airstream Land Yacht, which has to be one of the weirder marketing hooks. Slither might have been one of the first thrillers to use RVs, but it wasn’t the last: Race with the Devil (1975) is probably the most memorable.
I’d be dragged out into the street and pelted with rotten fruit if I didn’t also mention Richter’s most famous contribution to cult cinema: he directed and produced The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), proof if proof were needed that it wasn’t just the 1970s that had weird and wonderful titles.
Kitty is left behind when she attempts to rob a diner; Barry makes the mistake of going for a tuna sandwich, which prompts the others to think he’s been kidnapped.
I have been delighting in W.D. Richter since I saw Buckaroo Banzai in middle school. Slither goes on the list.
Great review of a great movie. I loved BB & have been anxiously awaiting a sequel. Oh well. Heading to YouTube to watch Zieff's commercials.