KNIGHTS OF CYDONIA VIDEO:
Add This Banner To Your Page & Let Us Know About It
Gustaf Von Musterhausen made his way to Hollywood in the late 1960s after a mysterious career as an arms dealer in Europe. Threatened with extradition from France and Germany, Von Musterhausen fled to America and incorporated Euro Ballistics & Aerospace FilmCo Limited. Taking advantage of tax loopholes, he produced exploitation and adult titles with a simple ethos.
Speaking in a 1978 interview Von Masterhausen explains, The audience wants more than they get in Star Wars and the Spielberg shark movie. More blood, more boobs, more explosions. If I see there are chickens in the script, I say, make those chickens shoot fireballs from their beaks. And do it for real. No special effects.
Von Musterhausens first entry into move-making was surprisingly earnest, producing the low budget youth market romance Rocks in my Heart. Although the film was well-received by at least one local critic, it barely made a dime. Disillusioned, Von Musterhausen decided to churn out films faster and cheaper.
Having complained that such popular 70s adult titles as Debbie Does Dallas and Deep Throat were too tasteful, he wanted to show Americans how it could be done.
Debbie Does Dallas has good story, but theres too much story. You can develop the characters by showing how they have sex. Also, when the movies are over, there can be no more sex scenes. But the characters are not killed. I always kill the characters at the end of the movie. Not the actors, lets be clear. The characters die.
Over the course of 15 years, Von Musterhausen produced over 100 big screen porn titles. Hits like Sallys Magic Box and The Shape of Things That Come maintained narrative genre pretenses, but Von Musterhausens name was synonymous with the eras most lurid films.
By 1980, Von Musterhausen wanted to branch out to an emerging exploitation market, beyond simple T&A flicks. Dennis Hoppers Easy Rider, would provide inspiration for what was to happen next.
Hoppers movie Easy Rider had motorcycles in a desert. Terrible movie. I saw that and said, OK, but if we replace motorcycles with horses, then we have a fresh start. Something new.
This was the germination of the feature Knights of Cydonia, which despite its producers claims that he had invented a genre, fit comfortably with the Spaghetti Westerns of several years earlier.
Written by the late screenwriting team of Grigor and Radoslava (Boobs of Fury), Knights of Cydonia was shot in ten days in the Peoples Republic of Socialist Romanistan. It was a textbook example of independent filmmaking as Von Musterhausen took advantage of the weak currency and favorable tax break. The financing was completed when Von Musterhausen sold several Soviet T-80 125mm tanks to the countrys dictator. The tanks came in handy as they crushed the student democracy rebellion of 1982.
Leading the cast was John Strong, a well known actor in the adult film industry, who Von Musterhausen had worked with previously (he played Shape ..3 in The Shape of Things That Come.) Cast as The Man With No NameVon Musterhausen considers his giving the western a nameless hero his most inspired ideaStrongs nemesis is the ruthless Sheriff Baron Klaus Rottingham. Rottingham was played by ex-wrestler Drakker, who had moderate fame until a back injury in 1975 meant he could no longer fight. As the love interest Princess Shane Kuriyami, Olivia Fairchilde was cast. A famous child star in the late 1960s, Von Musterhausen has since hired Fairchilde in seven of his adult titles.
From the beginning, Von Musterhausen was disappointed in his crews work ethic. He wanted a real robot built for the part of Robot, one that could shoot lasers. When time and budget restraints made this impossible, Von Musterhausen decided nothing was worth paying for. When an actor was to be hanged, he reasoned, it was easier to just hang the actor than fake it with an elaborate, and more expensive, prop. It was more realistic too. To ensure the appropriate level of grit and desperation of the Western setting, actors were forbidden from eating. Fairchilde, long considered his muse, was becoming harder to deal with. The films director Johan Siggisvatson had gotten to the point where he wouldnt speak to Fairchilde directly. It was becoming clear she was unraveling to the lifestyle choices of the early 1980s.
So was Von Musterhausen. He had succumbed to the Hollywood lifestyle he once scoffed at. Knights of Cydonia (which attained success on the midnight circuit by 1988) led to several sequels of diminishing returns, including Destroyers of Cydonia, Revenge of Cydonia, Mask of Cydonia, and the unfortunate Cydonia in Heat: Naked Aggression 3. In 1999, one more attempt was made to update the Cydonia series. Simply titled C2000, the movie failed at the box office.
While vacationing in Monaco in 1984, Gustaf Von Musterhausen drove his Delorean into the Agean Sea and died under mysterious circumstances. The model car would attain iconic status the following year with the box office hit Back to the Future.
