Bob Clark, 1941 - 2007.

Bob Clark, whose film A Christmas Story became a seasonal fixture for its bittersweet cataloguing of holiday dreams and disappointments, was killed with his son in a car crash. He was 67.

The AP's Jeremiah Marquez.

They had just driven a few blocks and were heading south on Pacific Coast Highway near the Bel-Air Bay Club at about 2:20 am when a GMC Yukon swerved across the lane, striking their Infiniti Q-30 sedan head-on. Father and son were pronounced dead at the scene.

Valerie Reitman and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times.

Updated through 4/9.

[T]his makes me deeply sad - actually, pretty fucking angry - which makes it unlikely I'll finish writing tonight about the images in my head from Quentin Tarantino's epic, limb-scattering head-on collisions in Death Proof.

Ray Pride, who gathers several links at Movie City Indie, including one to "Roger Ebert's nostalgic and very personal 'Great Movies' review" of A Christmas Story.

See also: Ty Burr (Boston Globe), Christopher Campbell (Cinematical), Brendon Connelly, Edward Copeland, Bill Gibron (PopMatters), Lou Lumenick (New York Post), Quint (AICN), Reel Distraction, Swarez (Twitch) and Jeffrey Wells.

Updates: Here's a happier Grindhouse connection: For the LA Weekly, Scott Foundas, Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez convened "a kind of roundtable with a few favorite grindhouse veterans... or, to quote Tarantino, summit." Bob Clark was among them. An exchange between QT and Clark:

Tarantino: I have to tell you that, of course, everyone talks about the George Romero movies when they talk about the zombie genre. But hands down, on my own list of great zombie movies - or even the great shoestring classics of 70s horror - Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is right up there in the tip, tip top. The thing I loved about that movie so goddamned much is that the whole movie is humorous - it's humorous from beginning to almost end. If the movie is 90 minutes long, for 79 of those 90 minutes it's a comedy. And then, when the zombies show up in the last 11 minutes, there ain't a goddamn thing funny about it. They just wipe out everybody. I have never seen a movie that for 79 minutes is a comedy and the last 11 minutes is balls-out horror!

Clark: Well, you know what? I've always said I would never allow any of my movies to be remade. I betrayed that by allowing Black Christmas last year. But now I have written a new script for a remake of Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, and I'm going to direct it myself. It's going to be like Monty Python meets Night of the Living Dead.

Whoever directs that screenplay, I'm looking forward to watching that one.

"[H]e always struck me as a guy who loved movies, loved moviemaking, and practiced his craft with the same enthusiasm wherever his career took him," writes Glenn Kenny. "For my money, Clark's one certifiable masterpiece is the deeply creepy 1974 Deathdream, in which The Monkey's Paw meets Vietnam."

Update, 4/6: "Clark's career was the kind in which a demand for apologia was built in," writes DK Holm at ScreenGrab. "And that's because the tyranny of the 'well made film' and the bias against genre (if not pleasure itself) still prevails in some circles. Bob Clark left behind at least two films that will live on with viewers forever - and of how many washed up 70s and 80s has-beens can that be said?"

Update, 4/7: "The big surprise in viewing Black Christmas was not that it matched my memory, but actually exceeded it," writes Dennis Cozzalio. "The saddest commentary on Clark's life and career is that they could be so mindlessly, instantly snatched away in a horrific set of circumstances that remain far too common on every street and highway in our country and around the world."

Update, 4/9: "A little bit of Canada died along with Bob Clark," writes Peter Howell in the Toronto Star. "[I]t was with the teen sex romp Porky's in 1982 that Clark really carved his initials into the maple tree. By that time he had joined with a production team that included Don Carmody and Harold Greenberg, two names that in later years would figure prominently in the Canadian movie industry.... 'I remember when I first read Bob's screenplay for Porky's,' Carmody said from Montreal yesterday. 'I said, "Holy Christ, we can't make this thing!" Then I went back and said, "That's exactly why we have to make it, because nobody's ever seen anything like this!" We got on board and it was a wild ride, I can tell you.'" Via Movie City News.

Posted by dwhudson at April 5, 2007 3:19 AM