# What Was The Phony Film In The Golden Turkey Awards? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 13, 2003, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745 "2003-02-13T03:11:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/21 "2003-02-14T00:43:22Z")
> [@](#): > > As far as I can make out, Warren feels that any film, no matter how badly it turned out, is the result of somebody’s hard work and creative effort. To approach a movie with the deliberate intention of mocking it, he seems to feel, is petty and mean-spirited. > > While I take his point to some extent (and there may be a Great Debate lurking in this topic somewhere), Warren’s hatred of the Medveds seems to be way over the top. He calls them, among other things, “reprehensible,” “repulsively arrogant,” and “smug, merciless, and belittling.” Not their books, the men themselves. > > Warren also seems like something of a hypocrite, since he is perfectly willing to make fun of some of the weaker movies that he’s surveying. Well, the difference seems to be that as a film scholar, you reserve the right to pinpoint the bad amongst the good. The Medveds hardly qualify as film scholars since the only books that focus on film scholarship (and I’m not counting Medved’s larger [cultural screed](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060924357/qid=1045182864/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-4040640-9214246?v=glance&s=books)) have been books designed specifically to mock “bad” movies. I use the quotes because some of the films they ridicule are Griffith’s _Intolerance_, Peckinpah’s _Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia_, Resnais’ _Last Year at Marienbad_, and Eisenstein’s _Ivan the Terrible_–movies that any genuine critic can have issues with, but which the Medveds clearly do not get. The point being that **anyone** can write a book talking about how bad one movie or another is. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel (especially if you’re going out of your way to watch movies for that intent and purpose). But in terms of larger film scholarship, they have absolutely nothing to show for themselves, so it’s very different than a critic/scholar like Warren (or Ebert, et al.) who has proven himself in the field as having something _useful_ to say. Smug, merciless, and belittling seems to sum up Medved pretty nicely, though one adjective is missing: Dumb. ---
**Author:** ![SadTomato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@SadTomato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SadTomato)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/22 "2003-02-14T01:38:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Man Who \* > \*\*If Mr. Warren died three or four years ago, then he was the one I heard of. It was in an obituary notice that I heard about the “feud.” > > -Myron \*\* As far as I know, Bill Warren is still very much alive. Also, when I said : \*…The Medved’s are writing their book and hear or read a description of a notorious movie called Him. Without seeing the film–because it doesn’t exist–they include it in their book believing it to be real…\* I guess I was right. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2003, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/23 "2003-02-14T04:14:57Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by ArchiveGuy_ > Smug, merciless, and belittling seems to sum up Medved pretty nicely, though one adjective is missing: Dumb. Well, Warren does call him “ignorant” in another place in the book. Maybe that’s close enough. 🙂 Actually, you’ve answered my question about hypocrisy pretty well. I suppose I never thought about it that way, but your post makes a lot of sense. I admit I’m somewhat ambivalent about books like **Golden Turkey Awards**. I never really found the Medveds’ writing terribly funny, and like you, I’ve noticed the occasional inclusion of films and actors that clearly aren’t “bad.” Still, the sheer _depth_ of Warren’s apparent hatred leaves me a little cold. I often wonder if the Medveds are aware of Bill Warren, and if they’ve ever responded to him in any way. ---
**Author:** ![Keith\_Berry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/22d042/32.png) [@Keith\_Berry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keith_Berry)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/24 "2003-02-16T05:28:43Z")
Bill Warren is very much alive and posts quite frequently over at the Mobius Home Video Forum. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/25 "2003-02-16T06:12:24Z")
HIM is definitely the fake film. It would be impossible to have kept this film under wraps undiscovered by the Christian watchdogs of the media; look at the trouble Terrance McNally had with his (mediocre, BTW) play CORPUS CHRISTI. Something like HIM would have been held up as an example of Hollywood decadence by every newspaper in the country; even the ones who didn’t think it was bad would have cited it as the sort of movie the wacky Christians _think_ is bad. Here’s the [Snopes cite.](http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/gayjesus.htm) ---
**Author:** ![SadTomato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@SadTomato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SadTomato)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/26 "2003-02-16T07:15:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mehitabel \* > **HIM is definitely the fake film. It would be impossible to have kept this film under wraps undiscovered by the Christian watchdogs of the media…** **HIM** may be a fake film, but apparently it wasn’t “created” by the Medveds. It seems they believed it to be a real movie at the time they wrote the book. From what others have pointed out in previous posts, **Dog of Norway** seems to be _THE_ Medved-invention. ---
**Author:** ![Sqaat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Sqaat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sqaat)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/27 "2017-03-17T07:31:07Z")
A little while after the book came out, I read an interview with Harry in which he said a clue to the hoax is the photo of the brothers in the book. They are with the same dog that is in the DOG OF NORWAY image. In the first book, he had mentioned Muki in the acknowledgments. Also no biographies of filmographies of Gabby Hayes mention DOG OF NORWAY. HIM is a lost film, though enough evidence has surfaced to prove its one time existence: [http://lostmediawiki.com/Him\_(lost\_gay\_pornographic\_Jesus\_film;\_1974)](http://lostmediawiki.com/Him_(lost_gay_pornographic_Jesus_film;_1974)) [The pasted link cuts off the closing parenthesis, if the link doesn’t work please add it or copy and past the whole line] I was about 12 or 13 when the book came out and I thought it was THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED. I thought I knew my Jerry Lewis. Now of course I know I was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/28 "2017-03-17T08:05:58Z")
This thread is almost old enough to get into a theater showing _Him_. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/29 "2017-03-17T08:21:34Z")
So old, in fact, that the snopes article cited twice as evidence of HIM being the fake movie has been rewritten specifically saying otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/30 "2017-03-17T08:23:17Z")
> [@Sqaat](#): > > [The pasted link cuts off the closing parenthesis, if the link doesn’t work please add it or copy and past the whole line] Also, since it was specifically mentioned, to avoid this, use the link button or code to create the link, instead of just letting the software parse the plaintext URL. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/31 "2017-03-17T09:53:23Z")
> [@Sqaat](#): > > A little while after the book came out, I read an interview with Harry in which he said a clue to the hoax is the photo of the brothers in the book. They are with the same dog that is in the DOG OF NORWAY image. In the first book, he had mentioned Muki in the acknowledgments. Also no biographies of filmographies of Gabby Hayes mention DOG OF NORWAY. > > HIM is a lost film, though enough evidence has surfaced to prove its one time existence: > [Him (lost gay pornographic Jesus film; 1974) - The Lost Media Wiki](http://lostmediawiki.com/Him_(lost_gay_pornographic_Jesus_film;_1974)) > > [The pasted link cuts off the closing parenthesis, if the link doesn’t work please add it or copy and past the whole line] > I was about 12 or 13 when the book came out and I thought it was THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED. I thought I knew my Jerry Lewis. Now of course I know I was wrong. I’ll post the fixed link for you, but in a spoiler box since it’s probably NSFW. [Him (lost gay pornographic Jesus film; 1974) - The Lost Media Wiki](http://lostmediawiki.com/Him_(lost_gay_pornographic_Jesus_film;_1974)) ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/32 "2017-03-17T11:06:03Z")
I had this book when I was a kid. I loved it. I wish I had seen this thread when it was first around because I knew it was the dog movie. When I was in college, years after I first read the book, it somehow came up in conversation with a friend of mine. He actually looked up the phone number of the Medveds when he was a kid and called it. It ended up being their mother’s house. She apparently got regular calls asking that and told my friend the answer. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2017, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/33 "2017-03-17T11:15:23Z")
Sad to see Bill Warren mentioned: he died last October. ---
**Author:** ![42fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/4/b487fb/32.png) [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2017, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745/34 "2017-03-20T00:37:53Z")
> [@The\_Man\_Who](#): > > I seem to recall someone mentioning to me a film critic who took real umbrage with the Medveds, re: this book, because they “obviously” had not viewed all the movies they were lambasting. I’m going to have to check into that. > > -Myron As long as this thread’s been revived: Danny Peary in “Cult Movies 2” says that the Medveds hadn’t seen Herschell Gordon Lewis’s “Blood Feast,” based on their inaccurate description of the film’s villain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-phony-film-in-the-golden-turkey-awards/154745.md?page=1)