Moonshine Mountain (1964)

 

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Screenplay: Charles Glore

Cast: Charles Glore as Doug Martin; Gordon Oas-Heim as Sheriff Asa Potter; Jeffrey Allen as Jeb Carpenter; Bonnie Hinson as Laura Carpenter; Carmen Sotir as Angeline; Ben Moore as Raf; J.G. Patterson Jr. as Hutto; Stanley Dyrector as Ed Basham; Gretchen Blank as Mary Lou Carpenter; Harry Hoffman as Luther Basham; Karin March as Ma Basham

Canon Fodder

 

With Moonshine Mountain, you have a type of film that no longer is made, literally extinct in this current form without evolution having transpired or at all to keep semblances of it in existence. That, in the middle of the exploitation boom, you could have genre films specifically made for Southern states in the United States as Moonshine Mountain was. This is a concept that has existed before this film, but in this context, with Herschell Gordon Lewis being asking to make a film for the South¹, there is also the factor of an exploitation film here with the emphasis on southern culture and country music by way of this genre film that is ill defined, adding to this film's distinction.

It is amusing to contrast this to Two Thousand Maniacs (1964), from the same year, particularly as it shares cast members like Jeffrey Allen. No longer Southerners wishing to get gruesome revenge on Northern Yankees, they are lovable folk here willing to welcome Doug Martin (Charles Glore), a country music star from New York in their midst. Sure, one of the locals hits him over the head and steals his clothes when they met, but all is forgiven when Doug meets his family. More jovial than the initial introduction over a fancy jacket, the one thing the family is obsessed with is producing white lightning, moonshine from a giant red tank in the middle of the woods. The real threat is fittingly the authorities, Sheriff Asa Potter (Gordon Oas-Heim), who from the moment he steps in shot can have "corrupt law enforcer" as a name tag on his jacket.

The film is of its time; very low budget, it beholds to a period where one markets a film just on the back of having real country music, as the lead Charles Glore, who was a musician in Two Thousand Manaics, can play and sing among others, and some dynamic content, like a gun being shot off without any elaborate shoot out, and that being enough. Regional cinema still exists in the modern day, just in terms of if you were to go through micro-budget genre filmmaking, but films specifically to a regional audience are probably more obscurer nowadays; bear in mind, whilst this was a niche even in this era, it had an audience and a film like Smokey and the Bandit (1977) was a success as a blockbuster, even if in the modern day such a title would not be made again unless it could be made suitable for an intentional audience and for everyone.

This is nastier and adult than Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers (1967), another of these films from this time which had more country musicians and was openly slapstick, but not much difference exists between them. Available in the modern day in a battered version, created from Frankensteining two sets of surviving materials, Moonshine Mountain has a homemade quality which is curiously wholesome. All in mind of the content occasionally reminding you of Lewis' trademarks, with someone getting an axe to them, and at least one moment which has not aged well, that one female character is implied as being raped, and the dialogue between her family and another laughing it off when it is, most of the film is very quaint in mind to the director's CV. Only if you were to get to his couple of children's films from after this production, because Lewis did try his hand at anything, would you get milder than this.

With their mind obsession being bootlegging liquor, the leads are lovable Southern stereotypes, incredibly broad as "hayseeds" to the point I legitimately wonder what an audience in, say, North Carolina would have thought of this film at the time, let alone even feel uncomfortable even typing the term "hayseeds" for that sentence. The sense of playfulness is found, even in the opening credits having jokes in regards to each member of the crew (“he’s a big ‘un, ain’t he?”), and written is what stereotypical accent is apt for these characters. One wonders, however, what regular punters from the South would think of these caricatures of very poor white hillbillies, with a mentally simple adult daughter among the many children as part of the stereotypes, particularly in mind that this habit of regional filmmaking for Southern viewers, going as far back of D.W. Griffith, could extend both to filmmakers from the region or anything from outside trying their hand at cashing in on the fad over decades.

The film also presents the question of Lewis the storyteller, particularly in terms that Herschell Gordon Lewis, known for his gore films, was however an exploitation filmmaker, with and without David F. Friedman as his collaborator and producer, and dabbled in many films. By this point, having had a history in sexploitation, than having success with Blood Feast (1963), he was already by a couple of years going to dabble in other genres, and here just a year after. In exploitation, structure could be argued as being more around the content to sell, then basing the plot afterwards around it, which adds an additional factor.

It is a tale with a lot of tropes commonplace in storytelling long before it, notable a lead in Doug who is a successful celebrity humbled on his journey to research authentic Southern music, gaining it he also falls for one of the main family's daughters, who in her open hearted nature is in vast contrast to his urbanite and domineering girlfriend, who comes to his location part of the way through briefly to be a character. The pulp tropes, a corrupt sheriff who has been killing and hiding the bodies of FBI agents with his lackeys, shows as well Lewis was more than likely putting in what worked well in even older genre films from the b-movies/film noir days of cinema, which have honestly continued in American cinema decades after even in the modern day. Lewis, in another era, would have likely made films for poverty row studios in Hollywood if he had been born earlier and closer to that region, and considering noir films were being made still, very cheaply, into the sixties (as Something Weird Video can attest to) I would have been surprised if in another reality he would had helmed a few too if he felt they were viable.

Again Moonshine Mountain is, in spite of its more adult content, from a quainter era of exploitation. I do not see later exploitation films having a barn dance as a huge set piece, especially as it never leads to an action scene or a fight, just one of the many musical scenes with the advantage that, whilst an acquired taste as a film, the music is at least good as it is wholesome. It clearly had to use what they could find, a lot of real countryside locations in the long grass, arguably the most production cost having to build that giant red vat of moonshine which naturally explodes in the finale to have one moment of spectacle. Out of Lewis' career, this is one which would have to be built up to as, naturally, whilst the splatter films made his reputation, Lewis from here in his career will continue to deviate and get odder even for the later gore films. Honestly, Moonshine Mountain out of these films is more of a curiosity for the hardcore fans, but is fascinating nonetheless in context to all this.

 

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1) As per his introduction on the Arrow Video release.