BearManor Q&A with Ian Cooper, author of Kentucky Wild: The Films of William Girdler
1. You´ve written a study of William Girdler. Why?
Girdler has a reputation among cult film fans, mostly because of his work in the horror genre but he´s not exactly well-known. I´m been a fan of his work since I saw Grizzly as a kid and I think his life story is interesting, film nut becomes this very prolific director and then dies young.
2. And why Bear Manor?
I thought it would be a good fit for their brand, Girdler being an obscure-ish figure with a small but dedicated following. When I approached Ben (Ohmart) with the idea, he already knew of Girdler, which I took to be a good sign.
3. Serious question. Are Girdler´s film any good?
It depends what you mean by good. He´s no Bergman or Peckinpah, no and he wouldn´t have claimed to be. Most of his films are ultra-low-budget exploitation written and shot very quickly and sometimes that shows. But when you watch them chronologically, you get a very strong sense that Girdler was, as Lou Reed put it, growing up in public, getting more accomplished as he went along. Even in the worst of his films – The Zebra Killer or Sheba, Baby – there´s things to admire.
4. What´s Girdler´s best film?
Probably Three on a Meathook. It´s technically pretty shoddy but it´s a lot of lurid fun and it´s incredibly atmospheric. Plus there´s a short monologue about Vietnam which is maybe my fave moment in the Girdler oeuvre.
5. Your favorite Girdler film?
Grizzly. It was the first one I saw and the one I´ve seen the most. Yes, it´s a Jaws rip-off but it´s the best Jaws rip-off.
6. It´s a book about his films. Weren´t you tempted to write a biography?
There´s a lot of biographical stuff in there and I spoke to a number of his collaborators, from David Sheldon, who worked with Girdler for years and Graham Masterton, who wrote the source novel for The Manitou and they told me a lot about the kind of guy he was. I approached his widow and a couple of other people close to him but they didn´t respond.
7. There´s also some rare material in the book, no?
There is. Don Wrege, who was the set photographer on Asylum of Satan gave me permission to use some of his (excellent) photos, although he was no fan of either Bill or the film. Thomas Pope, who wrote the final draft of The Manitou screenplay supplied me with a lot of material he´d written for unmade Girdler films. It´s fascinating and also sad to think what might have been.
8. Anybody you didn´t get to speak to that you wanted to?
Other than the family? Most of Girdler´s key collaborators, like Charles Kissinger and James Pickett died years ago. I did want to talk to Andrew Prine and asked the director Jeff Burr, who´d worked with him, if he could set something up but it didn´t happen. Sadly, Prine and Burr have both since died.
9. How did the writing of Kentucky Wild differ from the writing of your previous books?
I´ve written three monographs (on Witchfinder General, Frenzy and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) and two sprawling, wide-ranging studies (of British horror cinema and Manson Family movies). This was somewhere in the middle, writing in depth about nine features and a number of unmade projects. It was also the first time I´ve interviewed people for a book. If I known it would be so fruitful, I´d have done it years ago.
10. What do you want people to get out of your book?
Well, Girdler always stressed just how much he wanted people to get a kick out of his films, he had no pretensions about what he was doing. So in that spirit, if people like the book, that´s great. If they like it enough to seek out Girdler´s films – and my other books – that´s even better.