1971 film by Ernest Pintoff
Dynamite Chicken is a 1971 American comedy film.[1] Described in its opening credits as "an electronic magazine of American pop culture," it presents a series of interviews, stand-up comedy, countercultural sketches, documentary segments, and agitprop relating to the peace movement, based around a stream of consciousness free form format.
Inspired by his experience making the TV documentary This is Marshall McLuhan for NBC, director Ernest Pintoff envisioned Dynamite Chicken as a collage to capture the hot-button issues of the moment. "I became interested in McLuhan and his theories of bombarding the audience with images...it seems to me the best way to impart a maximum of information to people."
The original segments involving Richard Pryor, Paul Krassner, the comedy group Ace Trucking Company, and other figures, were shot in 1969 and mostly improvised. Archival footage of other major celebrities of the day and repurposed film trailers is peppered throughout. The total budget for the production was $225,000.
He would state, "There's no message in the film, except for my point of view when I was making it."[2] In another interview, he explained the title by saying, "I overheard someone say, 'I make dynamite chicken.' I liked it. You know, a chicken seems so little and the other so explosive. It's a silly title that doesn't mean too much. The film doesn't mean too much either. I hope people will respond. I had fun making it."[3]
Cast
(as originally billed in the initial 1971 advertising)
Reception
Dynamite Chicken was originally screened only on college campuses, serviced by specialty company EYR (Educational Youth Recreation), who had also handled initial screenings of L. M. Kit Carson's documentary The American Dreamer. "It was initially booked in 35 schools," Pintoff told San Francisco Examiner film critic Stanley Eichelbaum, "And the response was so good, we thought we should try a theatrical run."[2] The Walter Reade Organization acquired the film and began releasing it in cinemas in January 1971.
The San Francisco Examiner called the film "a blue version of "Laugh-In" that bombards us with a collage of political protest, hip sloganeering and sophomoric nonsense...It strikes me as insincere, inadequate, and superficial in its entire approach to the comedy of dissent."[2] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times was more positive, saying "Pintoff, always in control of his wide-ranging material, remains an oasis of sanity in the eyes of the storm...Pintoff is fresh and disciplined in the choice of images he bombards us with."[9]
Legacy
The "magazine" format of blending comedy, unusual documentary coverage, and music featured in Dynamite Chicken would serve as the template for the subsequent WNET variety series The Great American Dream Machine, on which Chicken co-star Marshall Efron was a contributing writer. Ken Shapiro, another contributor to the show, would perform a improvisational dance on New York City streets, similar to the Ron Carey priest sketch, in his own comedy project The Groove Tube. Members of Ace Trucking Company would participate in the 1976 sketch comedy film Tunnel Vision, which featured a stripteasing nun segment similar to the "Sister Filomena" sketch.
In 1982, Seymour Borde[10] & Associates reissued Dynamite Chicken to theatres and drive-ins, with a new ad campaign, poster, and trailer, that focused almost entirely on Richard Pryor's presence, capitalizing on the success of Columbia Pictures' concert film Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip. Pryor was upset with the campaign's misleading tone suggesting that it was a new film and not a reissue, and that he was the star when his contribution only amounted to 10 total minutes, and initially filed a $6 million lawsuit to stop its distribution until the ads were changed. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John Cole issued a preliminary restraining order to the distributors on November 13, 1982, and ruled on December 2 in Pryor's favor, saying that the campaign must be corrected to properly reflect Pryor's limited role.[11]
Despite the ruling, almost all subsequent video releases of Dynamite Chicken have centered Pryor as a primary star of the film.[12]
