Festering Boil

Over at Movie Mis-Treatments, the 1953 confuse-fest Mesa of Lost Women starring Jackie Coogan awaits you.

The movie plays like a fever dream. It’s wildly incoherent at even its best moments. And it has no best moments. It is told in flashback—actually two flashbacks—although many of the events are not actually witnessed by either of the people flashing back. One character’s flashback suddenly becomes another’s about midway through the movie. I think.

It was edited using the “Sgt. Pepper technique” (i.e., cut the film into bits, throw them in the air, and randomly tape the bits back together); in fact, a deep existential conversation between two characters about love and life is intercut with random close-ups of grinning dwarves. Oh, and the soundtrack comprises 68 minutes of “Duet for Untuned Spanish Guitar and Kangaroo Jumping on Piano.” Endlessly.