Get Crazy

Get Crazy is a 1983 American musical comedy film directed by Allan Arkush, and stars Malcolm McDowell, Allen Garfield, Daniel Stern, Gail Edwards, and Ed Begley Jr. Plot It is December 31, 1982, and the Saturn Theater is preparing for its big New Year's Eve concert under the direction of owner and master showman Max Wolfe (Allen Garfield, credited as Allen Goorwitz), who has operated the Saturn since 1968. Assisting Max are stage manager Neil Allen (Daniel Stern), and visiting former stage manager Willy Loman (Gail Edwards). Also caught up in the wild activity is beleaguered stagehand Joey (Dan Frischman), temperamental lighting director Violetta (Mary Woronov), and Neil's younger sister Susie (Stacey Nelkin). Max Wolfe holds a 30-year lease to the theater, but reptilian concert promoter Colin Beverly (Ed Begley Jr.) has other ideas. Beverly offers to buy Max out of his lease with what seems to be a generous deal at Beverly's concert auditorium and stadium, but Max refuses, ultimately becoming so incensed that he collapses of an apparent heart attack. Outside, Max's ingratiating nephew Sammy (Miles Chapin) informs Beverly that he stands to inherit the theater from his uncle, and Beverly offers Sammy the same deal he offered Max—if Sammy can get Max's signature on an agreement to transfer the Saturn's lease before midnight. The various performers for the show are introduced: Captain Cloud (the Turtles' Howard Kaylan) and the Rainbow Telegraph—Max Wolfe's favorite band and a spoof of Strawberry Alarm Clock—arriving in an aging bus that is painted à la the Merry Pranksters' Furthur. Nada (Lori Eastside from Kid Creole and the Coconuts) and her 15-member band (a spoof of such girl groups as the Bangles and the Go-Gos) playing an amalgam of many disparate styles of music that appeared on MTV in the early 1980s—part bubble-gum pop, part New Wave, part garage rock. They are joined by "Special Guest Star" Piggy (Lee Ving of the L.A. punk band Fear). King Blues, the King of the Blues (Bill Henderson), a spoof of Muddy Waters (and, to a lesser extent, Bo Diddley and B. B. King). Auden (Lou Reed), "metaphysical folk singer, inventor of the '70s, [and] antisocial recluse", a spoof of Bob Dylan.