George A. Romero fans have a rare opportunity this weekend to screen one of his long lost works at the Parkway Theater & Film Lounge: a low budget, 16mm, privately funded, public service film titled, “The Amusement Park.” It was shot back in 1973, a few years after George made his ground-breaking zombie classic “Night of the Living Dead” (1968).
Romero and his production crew were between projects, looking for work. The Lutheran Society in Pittsburgh offered him the opportunity to create a film about elder abuse and the treatment of aging people. It was a “paycheck project” intended to be a made-for-TV special that would be broadcast on PBS. Romero seized the opportunity and made it his own.
He reportedly had a budget of $25,000 and a shooting schedule of just a few days. Many of his extras were volunteers and residents recruited from local elder care facilities. The location was West View Park, one of Pittsburgh’s family friendly, neighborhood amusement parks.
While the Luthern Society was probably expecting a conventional mini documentary, what they got was something much more unconventional and non-traditional. It should have been no surprise. They hired the guy whose creative juices reinvented and relaunched the modern zombie horror genre. George did it his way.
What resulted was something somewhere between an episode of Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” and the classic foreign film “Umberto D” from Italian Neo-Realist director, Vittorio De Sica. You could argue that one scene might have even been borrowed from Gerard Damiano’s classic, X-Rated film, “The Devil in Miss Jones” (1973).
“The Amusement Park” is a pretty bumpy ride, with all the twists and turns of one of the featured vintage roller coasters. It’s a nostalgic trip back to the world of 1973 and the filmmaking style of the times, showcasing hand-held 16mm cameras, arty angles and free-form, creative film editing. It’s a fun blast from the past.
Romero begins the film with the narration of an old man walking through the empty amusement park, setting up the story about the plight of the elderly. It plays like a high school educational film from the ‘70s.
Romero soon departs from the standard storytelling approach by introducing our main character (played by Lincoln Maazel) entering a small, sterile, limbo white room where he finds another old man, injured, trembling and confused, sitting in a chair. The staging and lighting are reminiscent of the famous ending of “The Devil in Miss Jones”.
“The Old Man” struggles to strike up a conversation. It goes nowhere. When he suggests he wants to step out of the only door in the surrealistic white room, the other man warns him against it, telling him “There’s nothing out there.”
He steps out anyway and finds himself in a strange amusement park brimming with metaphorical references, reflecting the unfriendly, unkind world that elderly people must deal with. It is filled with kind of serious, underlying social commentary that ran through virtually all of Romero’s zombie films. Critics eventually discovered those movies were about more than just blood, gore, and butcher shop entrails.
“The Old Man” finds himself rejected, robbed and dehumanized as he wanders through the park. He’s not unlike the victimized old man in “Umberto D,” whose painful journey through the rubble of postwar Italy never fails to move audiences to tears.
Romero does his best to dramatize the story – a real challenge working with a shoestring budget and a limited shooting schedule. Despite what now comes across as ‘70s-era campiness, “The Amusement Park” reflects the underlying rebellious, break-the-rules creativity of a talented filmmaker whose vision shines through, even when the project is a public service message for public television.
There’s a lot for Romero fans and film students to discover in “The Amusement Park.” Granted, it’s a little, money-making side project, but it exists on the timeline of a director who went on to make so many noteworthy films and eventually become a towering pop culture filmmaking icon.
I recall attending a private pre-screening reception for the world premiere of Romero’s “Land of the Dead” back in 2005. Quentin Tarantino (“Pulp Fiction”) was there. Robert Rodriguez (“El Mariachi”) was there. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (of “Shaun of the Dead”fame) were there, and they were all fawning in the presence of “the master,” George A. Romero, who was holding court that evening and basking in his glory for a moment. There was a tangible vibe of genuine respect and admiration that evening among the young filmmakers in attendance—an acknowledgement that without George’s groundbreaking movies and inspiration, none of them might have had careers of their own.
“The Amusement Park” has a limited run this weekend, with showings at 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Parkway Theater & Film Lounge, 644 Broadway Ave. Go to www.parkwaytheater.org for information on tickets.
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