Mail Bag!

Dear Margie from Glasgow, KY:

Thank you for your email of May 15^th. We apologize for taking so unconscionably long to reply – we’ve been getting used to our new digs in Snyder, TX.

Yes, the entire Rantin’ Russell staff has seen Fritz Kiersch’s 1985 masterpiece Tuff Turf – a few of us over ten times – and we’d like to say in all sincerity that this is one of the most important films of the last 30 years.

We could hardly agree with you more: Tuff Turf truly is a watershed movie, launching, as it did, the careers of a young James Spader and an even younger Robert Downey, Jr. And you are right again – Kim Richards dances provocatively to the same Jack Mack and the Heart Attack that played at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta during the 1996 summer Olympics bombing. And yes, that is Robert Downey, Jr. playing drums for none other than the Jim Carroll Band in the elaborate warehouse sequence.

But to the Rantin’ Russell staff, Tuff Turf is so much more than just Spader, Downey, Richards, and Jack Mack and the Heart Attack. Kiersch’s nuanced movie operates on multiple levels all at once, revealing new secrets to the viewer every time it's popped into the DVD player. It is a prodigious work of art that cannot be understood in a mere two or three viewings.

For instance, although countless essays have been written about Jim Carroll’s and Jack Mack and the Heart Attack’s roles in Tuff Turf, how many people remember that there were actually three bands contributing to the Turf’s eclectic soundscape? Dale Gonyea carries the day in the film’s unforgettable country club scene, playing, as J.R. & The Z-Man, the most mind-melting version of The Isley Brothers’ Twist and Shout any of us on staff have ever heard. We’ve come to see that scene as the focal point of the whole movie: a scene played for laughs, which is somehow still unintentionally funny.

It’s also a joy seeing Art Evans as the high school security guard, proving to his critics that he’s more than just the loveable Morgan in the Nine to Five TV series, or the “intern” in Scott Baio’s tour-de-force, The Boy who Drank too Much.

Additionally, in the age-old tradition film noir, much of Tuff Turf is shot on location in LA, lending a vibe of gritty realism to Spader’s existential journey through Los Angeles as a stranger in a strange land. The absolutely gorgeous crane shot of Sandy’s Burgers was shot at 6235 Lankershim in north Hollywood. The montage of Spader driving Mones’ (Nick’s) car through LA finds us in Santa Monica, at Superba & Pacific Coast Highway. The Hiller family home was also in Santa Monica, at 12951 Panama St.

Finally, the movie’s most iconic building – the liquor store where Kim Richards’ befuddled father works – still stands at 5900 N Figueroa St, in Highland Park, with the “Coldest Beer in Town” sign intact. (Discerning viewers will recall Tim Roth living across the street from this same building in Reservoir Dogs.) Built in 1921, the building was on the market for $4 million in 2012.

But the film’s most subversive moment comes towards the end, at the 1:13:05 mark on your DVD, when veteran TV actor Panchito Gomez turns the whole works on its ear by brazenly breaking the fourth wall. Throw everything you thought you knew about Tuff Turf straight out of the window. In just a few seconds, Gomez takes a straightforward narrative and implodes it, leaving the viewer reeling: why does Gomez look at the camera – if even just for a second – while Spader and Richards argue about her marrying Paul Mones? Director Kiersch’s instincts pay off in spades here, framing Spader and Richards in the background while Gomez fills the foreground, eavesdropping, knowing their every thought and move. We know what evil is creeping up on our protagonist, but we’re left with more questions than answers. Was Gomez ad libbing, or was this actually in the script? At press time, emails to Kiersch have gone unanswered.

And the endless barrage of lines that inform and infect our daily lives here at Rantin’ Russell. “Why don’t you learn to use it before you cut your balls off”; “Your pants are still… dry”; “Get outta here, get outta here, I said. Eddie – get outta here…”; “Life is not a problem to be solved, it’s a mystery to be lived”; “Nick what Nick what NICK WHAT NICK WHAT!!” “Lookit that. Talk about bawls”; “Nice dress”; “…But you know I never wanted to go to any of those goddamn schools in the first place”; “Where the hell’d you get Nick’s car, man?”

It’s worth noting, too, that Olivia Barash holds her own amongst the Turf’s standout cast, one year after playing the adorable Leila in Repo Man, and just a few years ahead of checking into AA.

And then the sundry smaller moments: Matt Clark awkwardly pawing his wife’s shoulder before dinner, as though he’s never really been comfortable around her and fears intimacy. Spader finding keys in the ignition of a Porche convertible near a bunch of porn shops. Michael Wyle mercilessly mocking Paul Mones while dozens of uninhibited youth dance to the Jim Carroll Band. The famed Spader-is-dead scene at the beginning of the movie, where our seemingly comatose protagonist suddenly springs to life and obliterates cockroaches with his dart guns.

All of this and we’ve said nothing about director Fritz Kiersch, who counts Gor amongst his credits. What we can tell you about Gor: It makes a mere 90 minutes feel like three fucking weeks with the in-laws, is more misogynistic than Otto Weininger, and finds Oliver Reed – Oliver Reed, for fuck’s sake – hysterically screaming “SEIZE HIM!” in the time-honored tradition of tragically stereotypical Saturday afternoon despots.

So yes, Margie, we at Rantin’ Russell join you in calling on the Library of Congress to register Tuff Turf as one of the most important American films of the last 100 years. Thank you for your email!