Rat Pfink a Boo Boo (1966)

Who payed the critics

I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Originally titled Rat Fink and Boo Boo, the filmmaker Ray Dennis Steckler discovered the misspelled title animation and left it that way because, shrug, he didn't care anymore. If you come into this film with the exact same attitude you may just come out of it with a modicum of joy. The film follows three greaser youths Linc (George Caldwell), Hammer (Mike Kannon) and Benjie (James Bowie) as they stir trouble around the neighborhood. They abduct a young lady (Carolyn Brandt) the girlfriend to rock n roll star Lonnie Lord (Ron Haydock). When hearing the news Lonnie and his janitor pal (Titus Moede) run into a room and burst out moments later as makeshift heroes Rat Pfink and Boo Boo. The rest of the film is largely padded with goofy fight sequences, park side tumbling and a slap-dashed side story involving an escaped gorilla.Rat Pfink a Boo Boo feels like an improv game gone horribly off the rails. Our two heroes at first act like your average B-movie players but as soon as they come out of the room in costume, the consequences of everything simply melts away in a puff of cartoony smoke. The movie reaches full-charged silliness with the appearance of the gorilla which is laughingly played by a guy in a rented costume. I will give this movie one thing; at 72 minutes, at least it's energetic. Kind of like a group of screaming children playing in a sandbox.

I watched MST3K riff on another Steckler film "The Incredibly Strange Creatures"; it was a bizarre, gormless mess. So when I heard he'd done another one, which had an even bigger reputation as a goofy trash classic, I was sure it would be mind-blowingly stupid. I could hardly wait to discover how stupid it actually was. Well, I finally found it on YouTube, and found it was...actually way better than "Creatures". The parts that were supposed to funny were actually funny, in a Goon Show/Benny Hill chase kind of way. And the big "party" scenes were disjointed but had a groovy swinging/pretty girls dancing/rockabilly hep cat feel. I sort of wished I could be there, in fact. Incredibly cheaply made of course, and the stalker/kidnapping scenes were creepy, misogynistic, and overlong. Steckler should have tossed the "straight" crime scenes and inserted Rat Pfink into the movie about 20 minutes earlier. Reading about the background to the movie, I can now see why he didn't. But he should have.But watching Rat Pfink charge into battle cheerfully shouting (via unconvincing dubbing) "FIGHT...CRIIIIIME!" appealed to my inner 8 year old. That's about what I would have done when I was a little boy (if I had access to a motorcycle/side car combination). Pointless, goofy fun.

It's amazing that Ray Dennis Steckler has somehow avoided the distinction of being named the worst film maker in history. Heck, compared to his super-cheap looking films, even some of Ed Wood's films films look not all that wretched. I was fortunate enough to have seen two of Steckler's great films in the same evening, this and THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED UP ZOMBIES and can, without a doubt, say that Steckler might just be worse than Wood. If not worse, then at least in the same league as Wood.The first half of the film is a drama about three pals who take delight in tormenting women by robbing and beating them. This portion of the film is handled rather seriously aside from some irrelevant footage of Ron Haydock and his girlfriend romping about as he sang rock 'n roll songs. His singing wasn't all that bad, but the whole thing had a real cheap homemade look to it.Then, midway through the film, the money apparently ran out and the film got a lot cheaper----light-years cheaper!! Now, instead of a drama, from out of nowhere, Haydock and his pal jump into a closet and come out as crime fighters named "Rat Pfink" and "Boo Boo"! The costumes looked exactly like you'd expect 7 year-olds to look if they are pretending to be super-heroes and no attempt was made to maintain the serious tone of the film. It was like two entirely different films combined. Oddly, however, the second half managed to be somewhat entertaining on a camp level--mostly because the film never attempted to be serious from here on and was all done in fun. While dumb, it did make me laugh a few times as I was marveling at the awfulness of the production values. The fighting, in particular, looked like it was choreographed by Ray Charles.So is this a film for the average viewer? Certainly not! However, for fans of bad films, this is a great party film--one to watch with your friends in order to laugh at just how bad a film can be.

I don't think I've ever laughed more in a movie theatre than the first time I saw "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies" (1963) at NYC's Thalia some years back, and have wanted to see Ray Dennis Steckler's legendary 1965 follow-up, "Rat Pfink A Boo Boo," ever since. And the good news is that, to my not-so-great surprise, this turns out to be an extremely entertaining short film in the superhero genre. Filmed on the supercheap for only $20 (as Steckler tells us in an excellent interview on this DVD)--although every penny of that is evident on screen--the picture tells a simple story, in which Cee Bee Beaumont, girlfriend of rock star Lonnie Lord, is tormented and kidnapped by a trio of thugs. Good thing that Lonnie is actually costumed crime fighter Rat Pfink, and that Cee Bee's doofus gardener is actually his cohort Boo Boo, who hop aboard their sidecar motorcycle to rescue her from the villains, as well as an escaped gorilla! The picture features remarkably fine photography and editing, and although there is no synchronized dialogue whatsoever, I was able to quickly adapt, especially when being thrilled by some very frenetic dukeouts and no less than four upbeat rock 'n' roll numbers. The varicolored tinting of the film only enhances the already impressive lensing, and, at a mere 65 minutes or so (not the 90 minutes widely stated), the movie never even begins to wear out its welcome. By turns amusing, suspenseful, exciting and ludicrously funny, "Rat Pfink A Boo Boo" is a worthy successor to filmdom's "first monster musical." And Steckler, in his lengthy interview, proves to be just as bright and funny as his films would lead one to believe. The man has a remarkable memory, and his articulate stories round out this DVD very nicely indeed.