Electric Eye presents First of the Month Films
Talk about a movie whose time has come: Eating Raoul is a comedy about fed-up working-class people who kill awful rich people and steal their money to fund their own dreams. Bring it on! A cannibalistic caper that doubles as a razor-sharp social satire about income inequality and the end of the sexual revolution, Eating Raoul is something else.
Gonzo-satirist Paul Bartel grew up in the bizarro-land of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, where he quickly landed a job directing the hilarious Death Race 2000, starring David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, and, most notably, former Warhol Factory superstar Mary Woronov. The chemistry between Bartel and Woronov is fabulous. Good friends and a creative team from 1975’s fabulous Death Race 2000 until Bartel’s death in 2000, Woronov and Bartel made 17 films together. Eating Raoul, their seventh collaboration, is clearly the gem of their shared filmography
A bawdy, gleefully amoral tale of conspicuous consumption, Raoul casts Bartel and Woronov as a prudish married couple who feel put upon by the swingers living in their apartment building. One night, by accident, they discover a way to simultaneously rid themselves of the “perverts” down the hall and realize their dream of opening a restaurant. A mix of hilarious, anything-goes slapstick and biting satire of me-generation self-indulgence, Eating Raoul is comedy with a substantial body count.
Made for $230,000 (much of it from the sale of his parents’ house), the film was an art-house hit, grossing $2 million. As a director, Bartel made many films, including great ones (Death Race 2000), good ones (Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills), and bad ones (the Tim Conway vehicle Longshot). Like an oddball Cassavetes, he funded his pictures through an eccentric acting career that included credits in Eat My Dust!, Piranha, The Hustler of Muscle Beach, the fantastic Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (featuring the Ramones), Samuel Fuller’s White Dog, Chopping Mall, Amazon Women of the Moon, Caddyshack II, The Pope Must Diet, Gregg Araki’s The Living End, The Usual Suspects, and many, many more.
Featuring a post-screening Q&A with the producer Anne Kimmel