THE WILD WORLD OF TED V. MIKELS (2008) ***

The Wild World of Ted V. Mikels is a fast-moving and fun documentary on the legendary B movie director.  Narrated by none other than John Waters, it gives us all the basic biography stuff you’d expect.  Mikels starts out in show business as a magician before trying his hand at directing.  When no Hollywood jobs are available, Ted brings Hollywood to him and independently makes his first movie, Strike Me Deadly.  Thus, a long and lucrative career is born.

The movie does a good job tackling Mikels’ work film by film (although his early skin flicks are noticeably absent) in a short span of time (it’s just over an hour long).  This isn’t a revolutionary approach or anything, but it makes for a nice overview of his career.  It helps that Mikels himself is a good interview subject.  With his finely waxed mustache, he has an engaging presence, and it’s easy to see how his offscreen personality transfers into his work.  I especially loved the stories revolving around his castle, which housed a revolving door of babes who kept him company for decades.  How many directors do you know of had a floating harem like that?  

The biggest attraction is seeing a lot of footage from Mikels’ movies.  There are trailer snippets from Strike Me Deadly, The Astro-Zombies, The Corpse Grinders, The Doll Squad, and Angel of Vengeance, and whole scenes from The Black Klansman, The Girl in Gold Boots (“I had a pretty mind!”), Blood Orgy of the She-Devils, Alex Joseph and His Wives, Ten Violent Women, and Mission:  Killfast.  His shoddy, latter-day, shot-on-video films like Mark of the Astro-Zombies, Dimension in Fear, The Corpse Grinders 2, and Demon Haunt are also well-represented, which is good to see, if only from a completist’s standpoint.

Mikels offers up some great anecdotes along the way.  Among them, having to cut Peter Falk out of The Astro-Zombies because he thought his performance was too hammy.  Mikels also states that Aaron Spelling attended the premiere of The Doll Squad and claims that Spelling’s Charlie’s Angels (which premiered four years later) is a complete rip off of his film.  (He’s right, too.)  He also talks about coming up with gimmicks (like inviting theater patrons to create their own corpse grinding machine) for The Corpse Grinders. The interviews with Mikels’ leading ladies, such as Tura Satana, Francine York, and Shanti are insightful too.

I can’t say this is the definitive documentary on Mikels.  It’s probably as good as we’re likely to get though.  If you’re unfamiliar with Mikels’ work, this should make a great primer.