The Big Cube (1969). Tagline: “Poor mama. She stood in the way of the $3,000,000 inheritance. So, they spiked her medicine with the big cube. Poor, poor mama...”
I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend Pal is accompanying me only semi-willingly). One of the running gags in sitcom 30 Rock was that Tracy Jordan once starred in a hit movie entitled Honky Grandma Be Trippin'. That title is essentially the premise of lunatic 1969 exploitation thriller The Big Cube, in which veteran Golden Age Hollywood glamour girl Lana Turner goes full-blast cray-cray when she unwittingly drops LSD.
Turner portrays glamorous stage diva Adriana Roman. When Adriana weds wealthy-beyond-measure tycoon Charles Winthrop, she earns the resentment of his jealous young socialite daughter Lisa. After Charles dies in a tragic freak yachting accident during their honeymoon, the widowed Adriana and stepdaughter Lisa clash over the conditions of his will … and things soon turn nasty. Especially once Lisa’s reptilian and parasitic fiancé Johnny – a medical student with a sideline in manufacturing LSD – gets involved. Johnny’s twisted solution: have Adriana declared mentally unfit (or persuade her to commit suicide. Or something) by lacing her sedatives with acid, so that they get their hands on all the inheritance themselves.
/ Check out the wiglet! Via /
This synopsis barely hints at the insanity of The Big Cube, an oddity from the late sixties period when Old Hollywood was in its flailing death throes and struggling to lure the youth market. It’s easy to see why 48-year old Turner was attracted to the film. The Big Cube is reminiscent of her successful earlier Ross Hunter-produced atomic-era melodramas, but with the formula updated with a “youthquake” twist of countercultural psychedelia, complete with drug-taking, orgiastic groovy party scenes and topless go-go dancers! I can imagine Turner reading the script and loving all the big emotional confrontations and juicy demanding nervous breakdown scenes. It must have looked like an opportunity to rejuvenate her image with something edgy, modern and “with it”, with the additional bonus of a youthful “mod” wardrobe of mini-dresses, caftans and go-go boots by Travilla (the costume designer behind Valley of the Dolls), gauzy soft-focus close-ups and an assortment of baroque wedding cake-like hair pieces. (In some shots Turner almost resembles Nancy Sinatra!).
How could she have anticipated that The Big Cube would be a mortifying fiasco and essentially finish her career? (Turner wouldn’t make another film appearance for six years). George (West Side Story) Chakiris is extremely unappealing as the villainous Johnny, so I guess he's perfect in Cube. (Those turtleneck sweaters and ankh pendants he wears throughout do him no favours). As Lisa, fashion model-turned-untalented actress Karin Mossberg is simply catastrophic. You’ll note that the presumably American Lisa has an inexplicable Swedish accent (the plot tries to cover this by reminding us she attended a Swiss finishing school. That explains it!). But while Mossberg is merely bad (stilted, wooden, affected), old pro Turner is majestically terrible and glorious to watch, especially at her most tormented. And the art-y lighting effects used in Turner’s bad trip freak-outs are worthy of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable. The definition of “bad movies we love”, The Big Cube is a mind-blowing fun time - for all the wrong reasons!
Watch The Big Cube here.
Further reading:
My analysis of the 1965 Lana Turner melodrama Love Has Many Faces.
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