The Godfathers: Part Two

At long last, here it is. The final Danman Production.



(Watch or embed the full YouTube playlist.)

Originally, this epic sequel clocked in at 2 hours and 40 minutes. Neither you, I, nor the internet had any interest in uploading that much crap, much less watching it. So I decided to recreate the so-called “Director’s Cut” that vanished circa 1998. By simply tightening, trimming, and reordering, I have eliminated 90 minutes.



You read that right. The version here is 70 minutes long and it breaks my heart. When I set out to shoot a feature-length film at the age of 18, this was how it was supposed to look. When I screened it for my stupefied friends, this was the movie I saw. It’s been 16 years, but The Godfathers: Part Two is finally done.



Although the first 30 minutes are too concerned with which gangsters are on which team, the rest of it is somewhat of a revelation. The torture scene, the seduction scene, the Russian Roulette scene, that blood-soaked finale—I’ll just say it. The kid behind the camera was starting to get it.

But it was too late: college had arrived. Like most of my friends, I packed my bags and a day later found myself sitting alone in an unfamiliar dorm room. I could sense it in the frat-house screams coming from across the street and the laughter booming through the wall: I was no longer the big fish. I was something much, much smaller.



The Godfathers: Part Two was my attempt to hold on. If I could keep Danman Productions together, then I still had a tether on my old life. I organized the script around which friends I had access to at college and which friends I could meet back in my hometown on holidays and weekends. It was massively complicated and I threw myself into it. The more elaborate the task, the less time I had to recognize that something big was ending.



The shoot concluded over Christmas break of 1993, during which my new college pal (and begrudging co-star) Tony hauled his ass to Fairfield to film the climax in Ben’s garage during one of the coldest winters in Iowa history. When I yelled “cut” after the final shot, everyone shouted in relief and ran for their coats and cars. And that was that. Danman Productions was finished.



Even tyrannical teenage directors have to let go, and eventually I did. Sure, there were college movies, but they were largely humorless affairs that stir within me almost none of the joy of Danman Productions. After graduation I became a legit filmmaker and author, but as much fondness as I have for my films and books, sitting in my house and partaking of them is not my idea of a good time. Watching Danman Productions, though—well, it’s been 16 years and I’m still not sick of it.



Back then, these movies allowed me to revel in my friendships by just hitting “rewind.” I dare say they are even more important to me now. Today my former superstars are spread all across the country, making a living in so many different ways it makes my head spin. Some of us are still close; others I’ve lost all touch with. But when I watch these movies it feels like I could call up any one of them and five minutes later we’ll be cruising around the square, windows rolled down.



I did add one thing to The Godfathers: Part Two. As an homage to the best friends I ever had, I created special end credits to replace the illegible originals. If you find yourself tearing up a little at the final fade out, you’re not alone. This is dedicated to the tireless cast and crew of Danman Productions. This may not be the movie I originally made, but it's the one I had in my heart.

The Godfathers

Although it would be The Godfathers: Part Two that would implode Danman Productions, this is the one that paved the way for the overdue extinction. Clocking in at around 50 minutes, it was ambitious. Not good, mind you. Just ambitious. (And, thankfully, nowhere near as tedious as the trailer hinted it might be.)



Re: ambition, there's one scene involving eight actors and a camera person. That's nine kids! I mean, that's enough to start a freaking baseball team! If nothing else, it speaks to my curious powers of persuasion back then. What could I possibly have enticed nine kids with? Cookies? Fame? I guess that must have been it. Well, dudes, here's your fame. Let me get back to you on those cookies.



There was only one good reason Matt N. and I got to play the godfathers: we had tuxes. As proud members of our school's chamber choir (and, lord help us, show choir), we were both up to our armpits in bow ties, vests, and cummerbunds. Unfortunately, we grossly overestimated the hilarity of our Brando impressions (though I do kind of think our continual references to stuffing our jowls with cotton are kinda cute).



Probably the oddest thing about The Godfathers is the tone. In the third video, there's a scene between Ben and I that's actually rather sad (and, no, I don't mean pitiful-sad). Large stretches of the movie are weirdly sober. Even the snowy holiday setting contributes to the sense of melancholy. So what was I going for here? Parody? Drama? I don't know now, and I don't think I knew then, either.



Points of (some) interest:

* Stop with the in-jokes already! The Naughty Elephant and the Bastard Chicken Clock both get gratuitous shout-outs.

* I love when Joe gets shot and he squeaks, "Ouch!"

* Best line in the entire movie: "Butthead."

* Jami singing "I'm Too Sexy" in the shower.

* The size of Mike's cell phone!!!

* The out-of-nowhere AmberVision scene that is somehow, totally inexplicably, the most tender thing I ever shot. There's something hilariously resigned about how Ben laments that his sunglasses are "just the old regular kind."

* At 3:37 into the final video, the cold weather became too much for our boombox batteries. The famous Godfather theme has never sounded so feeble. Somehow appropriate, don't you think?

Take note, brave viewers: the first couple sections have enough sound issues to seriously try your patience. But take heart! By the third video things pick up considerably. It's all relative, of course, but you know what I'm saying.

The Bastard Chicken Clock from Hell

My oft-made gripe is that I didn't have any editing equipment. But what if I had? Today, an experiment! I re-edit one of my movies.

The movie in question is The Bastard Chicken Clock from Hell. I had this clock. It was plastic, shaped like a chicken, and played an annoying song as its alarm. My friends disliked it. That's not strong enough. They loathed it. They plotted its demise. Yet despite tumbles down stairs and kicks across floors, it was The Thing That Would Not Die.

Thus this movie about an evil clock who drives its owner to do something awful to get that terrible song out of his head. You know how directors supposedly have "visions"? Well, this was my first one. I envisioned a (mostly) silent, black-and-white film with a few lingering dissolves. But those were three things I could not do. Until now. Take that, life!

Above you can watch my re-edit. I didn't allow myself to tamper too much - I didn't change the order of shots or do anything else that might dramatically improve the movie. But it's still kind of nice, after all these years, to see the damn thing finally finished.

(Footnote: The chicken clock survived many more assassination attempts in college, one of which knocked the clock hands from the face, rendering it useless. But still it sang its song. It was years later when, mysteriously, it passed away silently in the night. Sometimes I awaken and think I hear it calling to me from beneath the bed. Maybe it didn't die? I am too afraid to look.)

The original version is below.

Father Sin

If anyone was qualified to take on the Catholic Church, it was me and my merry band of teenage yo-yos. Thus this excruciatingly paced drama/thriller about a boy's sleuthing into the life of a murderous priest. That priest is played by Joe in another hilariously goofball performance, but you gotta slog through about nearly twenty minutes before you get to hear him whine, "Surely they couldn't have found the checklist of my wife's murderers!" That's good writin', Kraus.

Why is this movie so damn complicated? I've watched this three times now and I still can't follow it. Thankfully, nothing is confusing for the first seven minutes. Why? Because the movie begins with a seven-minute opening credit sequence. It kicks off with classical, smash cuts to Pearl Jam, and segues oh so smoothly to Enya. Yes, Enya. I had no shame. (Footnote: many years later, when shooting the book trailer for The Monster Variations, I shot in the same cemetery as the one in the Enya scene. Truth!)

Some notes on the actors:

* Father Sin featured our first return character. Officer Bill Johansen, so manly and commanding in The Blob, is once again played to jittery perfection by Ben. Along the way he gets to say a bunch of cool crap like, "Comprende?"

* Leading man Mike, in his first Danman appearance, steals the show with his guitar wailing. Mike had talent, real talent, and since we at Danman Productions had never seen talent before, all we could do is gape at it like morons during the gratuitous shredding scene.

* Matt K. also made his debut as the Cajun bum. Why Cajun? Because Matt K. did a pretty good Cajun accent. Unfortunately, the accent completely swallows the highly important exposition (that he's clearly reading off the script because, like the rest of us, he couldn't follow the plot, either).

* Shad had gone off to college at this point, and his status was clearly "elder statesman." I mean, his cameo role was Mike's dad, for chrissakes. I'm surprised we didn't make him use a walker.

* Julie, the unheralded workhorse who quietly slaved away in practically every single Danman Production ever, is mysteriously absent. But no! Those wedding hands at the beginning are hers. It's a brutal injustice that she was left out of the credits, and to make up for it, I've tagged her name to this entry. I'm sure that makes up for the decades of grief and therapy my oversight caused.