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FILM COMMENT
January / February 2004
KNOCKING ON HEAVEN'S DOOR
Rediscovering Timothy Careyâs The Worldâs Greatest Sinner
ãStarring, written, produced, directed, and distributed by Timothy Careyä proclaim the end credits of the actorâs mind-boggling 75-minute feature The Worldâs Greatest Sinner÷a tall order even now, but virtually unheard of back in 1962. Made for $100,000 and shot over a period of three years around Careyâs home in El Monte, it has the same low-budget charm and mania of Oscar Micheaux and Ed Wood at their best. Carey gives his eccentricity free rein in his only stint as a director, and the result is a kind of psychotronic Night of the Hunter. The film opens with the Devil (in the form of a snake) introducing the sleepy-eyed, mush-mouthed protagonist, Clarence Hilliard (Carey). Hilliard is dissatisfied with his job as an insurance salesman and informs his horse he wants to ãmake life eternal.ä Stumbling onto an anarchic rock ânâ roll show (complete with footage edited in upside down) he is thunderstruck. He gets a guitar, rants along to a rock song in his bedroom, and asks his wife, ãWhy canât I be a god?ä Soon heâs proselytizing in the streets, promising that ãeach and every one of you can be godsä (anticipating the similar claims of cult leader Jim Jones). He then changes his name to God Hilliard (also the name of Groucho Marxâs mobster character in Skidoo, a half decade later). After seducing an elderly woman, he leads his first rally, whose highlights include an Elvis/James Brownöstyle quake-and-shake dance routine, which Carey also performed in Poor White Trash, a.k.a. Bayou (57). As Hilliard exits the stage, the crowd chants ãWe want Godä and begins rioting, a scenario revisited at the filmâs premiere when Carey fired a .38 over the heads of the audience. Later he meets with an advisor who convinces him to give up rock for politics. Hilliard smashes his guitar and runs for president. He quickly derails, makes out with a 14-year-old devotee, slams his own daughter to the ground when she begs him to return to the Christian faith, and rejects his wife. He asks God to make his presence known. After stealing a communion wafer he stabs it repeatedly with a needle to see if it will bleed the blood of Christ. Initially scoffing that itâs nothing but a piece of bread, Hilliard flees as the blood suddenly starts to flow. When he returns to the scene for the finale, heâs blinded by an overwhelming light as the film switches to color÷just like in Tarkovskyâs Andrei Rublev.
The Worldâs Greatest Sinnerâs title song is a raucous R & B tune÷an early work by Frank Zappa. In one of his first professional music jobs, Zappa scored the film with a junior college orchestra, and the juxtaposition of R & B and avant-classical themes prefigures his output with the Mothers of Invention by several years. Despite copping Hilliardâs goatee for his own trademark look, Zappa disparaged TWGS when he appeared on The Steve Allen Show, calling it ãthe worldâs worst film.ä Nevertheless, Daily Variety hailed it as a masterpiece, and John Cassavetes said it had ãthe brilliance of Einstein.ä When Carey acted alongside Elvis Presley in Change of Habit, Elvis told him heâd always wanted to see TWGS and asked if he had a 16mm print. Alas, Carey had it only in 35mm. ÷ Alan Licht
For more information, contact Romeo Carey at
timothycarey.com.
© 2004 by Alan Licht
