MOVIES THAT CAN'T BE SEEN -- "The World's Greatest Sinner" (1962)

Well, it lists "1962" as its release date on the IMDb, only because it has to say it was released at some point. After all, people have seen it. It has to have an origin, right? It mainly achieved status in '62, playing in select theaters at midnight screenings, but that was pretty much it. The truth is, this has still not been officially released, and you CAN'T see it, no matter what you do.

Well, maybe you can break into Martin Scorsese's house -- who ranks it as one of his favorite rock n' roll movies of all time. I'm sure he has a copy. With a little bit of will, you can sneak into his vault, and snag yourself a copy of this flick, one of the most mythologized of all time -- if only for being one of the longest to ever live in post production.

Or, you can hope against hope that Turner Classic Movies might show it, as they did back in 2006, really late at night as part of their Underground Film Series, since discontinued. This is how I saw it, or, rather, think I saw it. It aired on one of those Saturday nights like many I've had in my life; I fell asleep watching some more reputable cinema -- maybe Elmer Gantry, or some nonsense. When I woke up about 2 am, groggy and just coming out of dream state, my senses were overblown by this so-cheap-its-intriguing, black and white nihilism on film. The Guide said it was called "The World's Greatest Sinner", and even though it was almost over by the time I found it, I remained glued to the set until the end, mainly trying to convince myself it was for real. And it stayed with me, so much so that about every six months, I'll check Netflix, Amazon, and even YouTube, to see if I can finally watch the whole thing. No chance.

It's the story and the music that really got to me. An insurance salesman, Clarence Hilliard, played by the director, Tim Carey, himself, quits the 5 o'clock world he was raised to believe in and takes up rock n' roll. Smitten by the art form and the fan base it brings, he decides to turn his following into a political bonanza. And it works pretty good. Obsessed by how far he can take it, he stirs his PAC into religious fanatacism, forming a new socioreligious cult called the Eternal Man's Party, based on the central tenant that there is only one God and that He is man himself. Fueling his foray into this bold venture are the meager savings of old ladies, whom Hilliard seduces and then takes money from using plenty of false modesty. Yes, this latter plot point is probably a huge chunk of the pie in understanding why the flick was sent straight to the underground, and remains there to this day. There is no shortage of scenes wherein Carey initiates cringe-inducing foreplay with the geriatric cat women, in one scene making the passing comment before lips press together, "You're just like my mother..."

In these days when I've become so desensitized to any ill attempt at celluloid philosophy, it's a really special experience when I just have to gawk and say out loud, "Who would make a movie like this?"
Tim Carey. You know him if you're into Kubrick. He was in "Paths of Glory", and if you're a "Killing" fan, you're familiar with the sniper who's hired to kill the horse and lets his racial prejudice toward a parking lot attendant screw up the job altogether. A Brooklyn Native, Carey made a career out of playing the peripheral heavy; he's definitely my favorite thing about the Cassavetes experimental noir, "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie". But it was in 1962 with "Sinner" that he achieved, or, began to achieve, his notoriety as a Rebel Set director. Rough, mean, and mysterious, the flick is probably a fitting tribute to the enigma that preceded his reputation all the way up to his death in '94.

Maybe the best known bit of trivia about "Sinner" is that it was scored by Frank Zappa, pre-Mothers of Invention. Zappa did the music when he was young, hungry, and needed a break. Perhaps Carey got lucky with a music man who was about as biting toward the world as he was, or maybe he just saw him use the bicycle as an instrument on The Steve Allen Show and liked his penchant for artistic ballyhoo. I've never been much of a Zappa fan, just for the mere fact that I've popeyed around on other more accepted artists (most of whom attended the Zappa school), but it seems to me that he was one of the foot soldiers who brought rock n' roll into its own, and his early work might seem an easily marketable item to anyone who's ever listened to the stuff. But, for some reason, someone very powerful doesn't think so, and his work on "Sinner" remains, for the most part, unheard; as far as I know, it wasn't even sampled on any of his posthumous releases, notably "The Lost Episodes" (1996), wherein many of his lost or obscure recordings can be heard, including his work on another largely unseen picture from around the same time, "Run Home Slow" (1965).

Added to the Frank Zappa connection, which increases the mythology of "The World's Greatest Sinner" and intensifies the question of its obscurity, is the broad influence of Carey himself and all his love and glory. When Carey was alive, he was one of the most sought after avant garde actors on the scene, urged by directors ranging from Francis Ford Coppola to Quintin Tarrantino to star in their movies. Coppola asked Carey to star in "The Godfather", for instance, but Carey declined due to another engagement. Of course, fans of the classic film know Coppola was working on a shoe string and sought fresh new faces or tired old vets to fill out his roster, so this, on the surface, might explain why he asked Carey to come in. But then, that idea is debunked when you find out that Coppola asked Carey again for "The Godfather II", still showing his love for Carey after all those Oscars and a bigger budget were granted him. It's hard to determine who Coppola wanted him for. Maybe Clamenza would be fitting, but, then, when you wonder about the horse head sequence, and question whether or not Robert Duvall was really the one to chop up Flicka and plant him in the movie producer's bed, you immediately resolve that, yeah, I could see this Tim Carey fill the loafers of Tom Hagen, easy. Carey declined the role offered him for the sequel, not because he was working on something else, but because he just didn't want to do it. A guy who turns down the chance to be in the biggest movie of all time you really have to watch out for.

Fans of Reservoir Dogs might be interested to know that Tarrantino wrote the crime boss roll for Carey, then, upon production, decided the role wasn't quite right for one of his many idols, so he gave it to another notorious screen rebel instead, Lawerence Tierney. Still, Q dedicated the film to Tim Carey anyway.

I guess its Carey's connection to Tarrantino that truly baffles me about "Sinner"'s permanent location in a warehouse somewhere, shacked up with the Arc of the Covenant. Like him or hate him, Tarrantino has done plenty to raise awareness of the hidden gems and turds of film land. Many flicks Tarrantino has referenced, droned on about in interviews, or just plain ripped off in his movies, have found their way to many a film head's DVD collection. The guy sells movies; each one of his projects can almost function as its own film club, telling its audience what to watch, and what they might like if they like those recommendations. So why hasn't "Sinner", a movie made by a guy who got the most famous film nerd of all to make his first movie, not found some kind of Criterion release, with multiple commentary tracks and interviews by all the folks who saw it at some midnight screening, and were propelled forward by its influence to go out and shoot movies of their own?

Sure, the movie may not be around because it just ain't that good. You can look at the selected scenes below -- about eight minutes of them -- and decide if you could really sit through 90 minutes of this. (Of course, many movies aren't good and still get a release; for crying out loud, they released "Armageddon" in a 2-disc Criterion.) Or, you may not be able to see it because, truthfully, Carey never finished working on it. That's right. While Carey finished the flick in some capacity in the early 60s, he continued working on it until his death. It may just be that he told his estate not to ever release it because it wasn't finished. Or, he took the old George Lucas adage that "no film is ever completed, it's just abandoned" literally. If this is true, then Carey must have never wanted to abandon his opus. He probably believed in it so much, that giving it up for the world to interpret and tear apart might have felt to him a form of child abuse.

Then, is it too far to go if we question "Sinner" as a manifesto? A picture with a philosophy vehemently believed by its maker, like "Triumph of the Will"? Was Carey really serious with the "every man as God" doctrine of Clarence Hilliard, who, in the heat of the film, changes his name to God with a capital "G" and challenges the Creator himself, face-to-face, to acknowledge him as such? Is this why we can't watch this damn movie? Because of its posits that'll still get you knocked out today if you walk into a Starbucks and start spouting them? No, this could only be grasping at the proverbial straws. Manifesto or not, there is no shortage of folks who already believe and preach this, and they don't need propaganda from the '60s to sell at their rallies.

Maybe we just can't watch "The World's Greatest Sinner" because not enough people care, even in the cult film circuit. Rounding 'bout the Internet, this seems the case. There is a Wikipedia page with a short article, and an archived TCM page from when the flick aired its first and only time on the channel five years ago. If you've read this article, and have experienced a modicum of interest in seeing it, then you may already be hightailing it to start up a petition somewhere, or signing your name to one found in the deep recesses of Google. All be told, I do want to see this movie, if only to see the (still) original and fascinating story it promises to tell.

Yes, that is what it comes down to. All of the movie I have to go on are fifteen measly minutes I caught on TV after just having woken up five years ago, and the story, described on Wikipedia and IMDb. I may be able to hold out hope that I will still get to see, or hear, or read this story, as the film, having never been officially released, is in the public domain, and can now be retold in a variety of mediums. In this case, it is really only if the movie is remade that we will finally be able to see it, and Carey, with the film he apparently made a point of keeping ephemeral in the minds of its viewers, or for want of a perfectionism that makes Stanley Kubrick look like a carnival barker, can rest in peace, clutching the reels in his dead, but in-charge, hands.