'That Guy Dick Miller’ Pays Tribute to a Character Actor
By Nicolas Rapold April 2, 2015
A few years ago the
Los Angeles repertory cinema Cinefamily ran a screening series, “That Guy!,”
devoted to character actors. The subject of “That Guy Dick Miller” warrants his
own gala evening. Elijah Drenner’s jokey documentary crowds together admirers
and clips in tribute to Mr. Miller, whose working-Joe look and street-savvy
shtick have infused countless scenes with instant movie realism.
The Bronx-born Mr.
Miller rubbed elbows with exploitation royalty as a prime player for Roger
Corman (who appears here) and excelled in the 1959 beatnik satire “A Bucket of
Blood” as an innocent caught up in macabre art-making. He became a prolific
pro, recognizable through the 1980s (e.g., the veteran of “WW II” in Joe
Dante’s “Gremlins”) and beyond, as his fans became filmmakers. By giving a line
a dose of warmth or a shake of the head or just changing his slightly coiled
stance, he could make a stock character feel genuine or put quotation marks
around a comic bit.
That may partly
explain the inordinate number of editors — famously whisker-sensitive to
variations in expression — who give praise in Mr. Drenner’s film, along with
John Sayles, Mr. Dante and other filmmakers. Mr. Miller turns up, now an
octogenarian with bristle covering his wiseguy jutting chin, and putters around
at home with his wife, Lainie (also the film’s co-producer).
The survey,
pockmarked with sometimes dopey animations and music, feels scattered and less
than the sum of Mr. Miller’s many parts. But it has its heart in the right
movie-mad place.
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