The Manipulator

Original Movie Poster.

Alternate movie Title.

Today's entry is about a film which tells the story of workaholic gone mad. How many times have we wished for a greater amount of time to spend on the things we like most? How many times have they told us we're beyond obsessed with our hobbies or even our job? Well, you bet there is a moment where our mind is twisted by our obsessions and soon becomes our doom changing our behaviour, not letting us see the real thing, trapping us into our own world of sick fantasies.

I know a man who happened to go trough this process, his name was B. J. Lang and they made a movie about him and his schizophrenic visions of himself being a Hollywood make up man who took his job a little bit too serious.

a Man trapped in his world.

Can he tell the difference?

The movie released in 1971 known as The Manipulator, aka B.J. Lang Presents and in the spanish world known as Juegos de Muerte. Mickey Rooney lets loose in this flick. Rooney plays a deranged makeup man who kidnaps a young woman and then holds her in an old warehouse full of props, forcing her to act in his movie while he drifts in and out of reality.

To say that this two person film is strange is an understatement. Its clear why Rooney agreed to do the film since it lets him do things that he never got to do with Judy Garland or as Andy Hardy. Whats not so clear is why we'd want to watch it since its 90 minutes trapped with a psycho. This isn't to knock Rooney's performance, rather its to praise it since this clearly isn't a guy we want to have over for dinner.

Cut!

How do I look honey?

I'm on the fence about this film. I can't really recommend it for any reason other than being able to see Mickey Rooney let go, since the film it's not your typical psycho story where there are some more characters looking forward to get rid of the Psycho or at least to add some more lines intertwined with the movie's main plot, but here you feel like you're watching a two people play, and of course a 90 minutes movie with only two characters may of course be a bit too much.

The victim, Luana Anders.

Butcher's Orchestra.

Movies are most of the times meant to deliver entertainment and in this case we get to see some sort of psychological story that digs way too deep into the personality of a single character and as I stated before if you are a true fan of Mickey Roonye you will find it interesting, or if you're into the deep films with topics such as being mad it could be your cup of tea now if you just want to be entertained with a film, or use it as the background score of your barbecue or party this might not be the proper film.

Hard to swallow.

Here's a video review about the film: