DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH – The DVD Review

Harlan Ellison is dead. Harlan Ellison is DEAD!

I am reminded of a scene from Cleopatra with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, a Roman centurion has come to Octavius Caesar (Roddy McDowell ) with the news that “Marc Antony is dead. (I’m paraphrasing here, it’s been years since I saw the movie, forgive me if my memories are not accurate.) Caesar looks inconsolable: “How can you say that in such an offhand manner? Marc Antony is dead? It should be proclaimed from the rooftops, from the mountain tops, MARC ANTONY IS DEAD!”

At this point some people reading this (if anyone does) may be asking “Who the hell is Harlan Ellison?” More is indeed the pity my friends, if you do not know of Harlan Ellison let me advise you about his legacy and this wondrous documentary that captured the man, at various stages of his life, at the top of his game, in the full flower of his immense talent and the incredible work ethic that drove him to produce some of the finest American writing of the 20th (and 21st) century.

A little back ground first, before I sing the praises of this incredible documentary biography. I first encountered Harlan Ellison in the pages of Worlds of If Science Fiction, in 1967. I lost my Father in 1966, I would spend the rest of my life trying to get over that. We had just moved to a new home, in a new neighborhood, so I was the new kid in school, and was not exactly welcomed with open arms. Members of my own family did not care for me very much at this time, can’t say I blame them.

Reading, especially science fiction and horror and fantasy gave me an escape from an otherwise miserable childhood. It was in the pages of Worlds of If that I first read Harlan Ellison; the story was I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. If you have never read it, again, more is the pity. This short story, no more than 10 pages long, if that, absolutely changed my life, my world, my way of viewing the world around me. It tells of a super computer that takes over the world, destroys all of humanity except for a handful of people that it toys with, makes them immortal, incapable of dying.

Somehow the narrator, who is nameless, manages to put his comrades out of their misery and remains, alone, friendless, within the belly of the computer which has taken over the entire world and he becomes “something else.” Something both less than human, and more than that. I cannot begin to do justice to that story. It sounds like typical science fiction of that period, it is not.
From that day on I read all of Harlan Ellison I could find. Along with Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert E Howard, HP Lovecraft and several other writers, I read every word of Ellison I could possibly get my hands on.

I joined the Science Fiction Book Club and one of the first books I got from them was Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison. Again my life changed, for the better. In fact the written word, especially the genre of science fiction changed, forever. Dangerous Visions did not just push the envelope, it took the envelope and tore it into tiny bits, it shredded the envelope. I read that book, cover to cover, I don’t know how many times, I’ve lost count.

I will come back to my personal memories of Harlan Ellison shortly but first I have to recommend this incredible documentary. It opens with Ellison and one of his friends, Robin Williams, (yes THAT Robin Williams, someone else we recently lost) Williams reads a list of outrageous facts about Ellison, and some urban legends and asks “true or false”. Just one example, the first item, Ellison mailed a dead gopher to a publishing house, one that he felt had done him wrong. And not just a dead gopher, Ellison let it rot and get good and ripe before he mailed it. He proudly proclaims how much it cost to fumigate the offices of that publisher.

Ellison had sex with well over 500 women in his time, yet he maintains he had nothing but respect for women (ok, whatever….) Dreams with Sharp Teeth then launches into a rundown of Harlan Ellison’s incredible life and career. The only Jewish kid in Painesville, Ohio he was not just bullied, he was beaten up, daily. He claims to have had no friends yet one of the interview subjects here is identified as a child hood friend. Like many outcasts and misfits young Ellison found solace in books, movies, comic books, radio, and later television. He started writing at a very young age, and selling his writing while in his teens and twenties.

Drafted into the Army in the 1950s he was again the target of bullying due to his short stature, yet got by being the company “author.” Ellison wrote letters home for his fellow soldiers and, no matter how hard his company was trained, he had a typewriter hidden in the barracks that he would get out and sit in one of the bathroom stalls and work on a novel, which was sold before he was discharged by the Army. The documentary says the ”agreement to part company was mutual with the Army” whatever that means. We never do find out if his discharge was honorable, and quite frankly I doubt if Ellison even cared.

Harlan Ellison proceeded to make a name for himself, writing and publishing hundreds, if not thousands of short stories, and several novels. He worked all sorts of jobs, many of which made their way into his writing. He hitchhiked all around the country, made New York City his home for several years, then moved to Los Angeles intent on writing for the movies and television.
He did that although his career as a screenwriter was short lived. He wrote the script for The Oscar, with his friend Steve McQueen in mind for the lead role. I don’t know about you but the very idea of being able to call Steve McQueen a personal friend is beyond cool, I have no words to describe that kind of friendship. He also had Peter Falk in mind for the part of Hymie, Stephen Boyd ended up playing the actor who plots and schemes to win The Oscar, the part of Hymie went to Tony Bennett. Ellison is quick to say that Bennett is a great singer, a wonderful man, but can’t act to save his life. The Oscar ended up on many worst movies ever made lists.

Ellison talks about his knowledge that The Oscar would be the end of his career as a screenwriter. If you’ve ever seen the movie you’ll know why. I recall a television broadcast in the 1970s. To my knowledge The Oscar has never been released in any home video format. Ellison says that his 15 minutes of fame was more like 15 seconds.

Ellison had a lot more success in television writing dozens of scripts for shows like Burke’s Law, Alfred Hitchcock, Route 66 and The Flying Nun (yes, the Flying Nun!) Among his accomplishments in television, one of the most beloved of Star Trek episodes The City on the Edge of Forever. Although, like many of his television scripts Ellison said it was compromised. One of the joys of this documentary is Ellison reading his own work, he reads some of the dialog that City was meant to have, and he is right, the finished episode bears almost no relation to what he intended.
He also wrote one of the most memorable and beloved episodes of The Outer Limits, Demon with a Glass Hand which was filmed almost exactly as he wrote it. Robert Culp, who starred in that episode as the titular Demon,( who indeed had a Glass Hand,) said, in one of the last interviews he ever gave, that of all the work he did Demon With a Glass Hand was what he was most proud of, including a movie he wrote and directed himself Hickey and Boggs. His reason? He proclaims, rather proudly, it was Ellison’s writing. Culp considered Demon with a Glass Hand one of the greatest examples of episodic television ever created.

Ellison had many friends, and even more enemies. We hear quite a lot from Neil Gaiman, a good writer in his own right. Gaiman advises us, and we can see and hear for ourselves, there are at least three Harlan Ellison’s. There is the 12 year old boy that he never left behind, enamored of comic books, radio dramas, movies, the written word. There is the dead serious professional writer, constantly honing his craft, working and reworking every page until it’s just right. Even though Ellison admits he will find every excuse not to sit at that typewriter and actually produce pages. Something I and anybody who writes can identify with. And then there is Harlan Ellison the cranky old Jewish man, kvetching about the stupidity of people around him and the sorry state of the world and most especially his ailments.

Ellison himself admits that Jewish people are famous for three things; where to get good Chinese food, talking endlessly about their aches and pains and (I forget the third one.) One of the interviewees openly worries about Harlan “blowing a gasket” because of his infamous rants about the state of humanity and the world. We are then treated to one of those rants, his encounter with the video releasing company putting together a deluxe edition of Babylon Five, a show Ellison wrote extensively for. Ellison was asked to contribute an interview for the dvd release, he asked how much he would be paid, only to be told no one is paid to contribute interviews for dvd releases. This leads to a heated rant of immense proportions on the lunacy of writers constantly being asked to do work for nothing.

One of Ellison’s talking points, during his entire life, was how shabbily writers are treated, not just in movies and television but by magazines and book publishers, advertising firms, what have you. And of course he is right. He states repeatedly, in different time periods, (this documentary has footage of Ellison from the 1960s up to 2006 when the documentary was finished) that writing is a job of work, that writers should be paid commensurate with their time, effort and talent to get the job done. Such is not always the case.

Ellison was famous for doing “stunt writing” sitting in a store front window and writing a story, which was published as soon as he finished it. Going on radio talk shows and writing a story and carrying on an interview at the same time. On the subject of payment Ellison puts in a comment that struck me close to home, he mentions the idea of not paying writers comes from “schmucks” who do it for free. Every time I have watched this documentary I have to raise my hand and sheepishly admit “that would be me Mr. Ellison.” I have been writing for years and rarely have gotten paid. But I digress….We also hear about Ellison’s love hate relationship with, well, just about everybody. Ellison ranted for years about the idiocy of science fiction fans, especially at conventions, yet he attended many of those conventions, often as a guest of honor (I will touch on personal memories of that shortly). Never mentioned is a piece Harlan Ellison wrote for a science fiction magazine in the 1980s, about the despicable behavior of science fiction fans. A long litany of the abusive crap that writers, and other fans, have to put up with from the lunatic fringe of science fiction fandom. Ellison himself had key jobs done on his various cars, tires slashed, Gaiman even tells us that Ellison’s opinions were so reviled there was a fan organization devoted to, and even named “Get Harlan Ellison”. That essay ends with an incident where in Alan Dean Foster, at a convention, had a cup of warm vomit thrown in his face by a fan. Again, no mention of that. On that same subject Harlan Ellison created the phrase “bug fuck crazy!” His catch all term for such asinine behavior and stupidity.

On the subject of television Ellison made quite a lot of money writing for television, yet he constantly ranted about its insidious effects on people. I can just imagine what he had to say about cell phones, the now ubiquitous sight of slack jawed walking dead, standing, sitting and walking into lamp posts while staring at hand held screens, oblivious of the world around them. He denounced tv as a drug, that “people who would stand by while books were taken from public libraries and burned, who would stand by while old ladies are mugged in the street, will show up at city hall with pitch forks and pump shot guns if you take their tv away from them!” (that is a direct quote by the way.) His introduction to Strange Wine is where he lays out all the arguments about the negative effects television has on people. Yet Ellison had a huge tv, as soon as big screen tvs came into use he had one and kept upgrading it as the quality got better.

On the plus side of that his rants caused me to give up the tv habit. I have a tv, a nice flat screen but I do not have cable, satellite dish or even an antenna hooked up to it. I have a blu ray player, a dvd player and a vhs player, (just in case) and I do watch tv shows as well as movies, only if they are in a home video format. I control my tv, it does not control me. That is just one effect Harlan Ellison’s work has had on my life.

We see a good bit of Harlan Ellison’s eccentric behavior. Robin Williams leads us on a tour of Ellison’s home, filled with toys, comic books, and memorabilia. And we also see shelves full of Olympia manual typewriters. Ellison never, ever stopped writing on manual typewriters and he stockpiled dozens of them when he realized they would no longer be made after home computers came into wide spread use. He also stockpiled typewriter ribbons and kept them in a refrigerator, again, with the knowledge that they would no longer be available. Ellison famously stated, repeatedly, that a manual typewriter was all he needed, if he ever bought a computer the documentary does not say. We never see him using a cell phone either, not sure if he had one. Some might think this strange that a writer who made his name in science fiction would reject new technology out of hand.

Yet again, Harlan Ellison did not consider himself a “science fiction” writer. He preferred the term speculative fiction and felt that his writing should stand or fall on its own merits rather than be pigeon holed into a certain genre (which, of course, is what book publishers love to do, it makes marketing so much easier!)

Not only did he type on a manual typewriter he used what is known as hunt and peck, typing with two fingers and looking at the keyboard instead of using the “touch” method to type. Which is what I do, but I do use more than two fingers to type! Which makes his massive output all the more remarkable.

Another incident never remarked on, the only thing I am aware of Harlan Ellison ever did that I would call despicable, almost evil, during the court proceeding for Forrest Ackerman, the long time editor of Famous Monsters of Film Land magazine Harlan took the stand, AGAINST Forry Ackerman. That is a whole entire subject but Forry had the magazine taken away from him by a clown named Ray Ferry. He sued to try and get the magazine back or least be able to use the name. The court case bankrupted Forry Ackerman, one of the most beloved people in fandom, and caused him to sell his much of his beloved collection of literary and movie memorabilia. I’m not sure what all Harlan had to say about Forry, I’ve been told it was all negative and certainly did not help Forry’s case.

Harlan himself admits that he is fully aware of his faults. Married five times he admits that he is astonished that any woman can live with him under the same roof, for any amount of time. He found his soul mate in Susan Toth who stayed married to him from 1986 until his death this year on June 28.

I am proud to say that I saw Harlan Ellison in person, several times. In 1968 I got to attend a regional Science Fiction convention in St. Louis, called an Ozarkcon. Harlan was the guest of honor. Only 12 years old I was huge for my age and was probably thought of as a young adult. I had a reputation as a smart ass at that age, shooting my mouth off without engaging my brain. Amazingly enough, even to me now, after all these years, I pretty much kept my mouth shut. I was jazzed just to be at a Science Fiction convention, spending time with people who liked to read the same things I did.

And when it came to Harlan Ellison, well, I had in mind Abraham Lincoln’s quote about “better to keep silent and be thought a fool, then to speak up and remove all doubt.” I would love to say I spent time talking to Harlan Ellison, I did not , I was terrified to even speak to him, except to ask for his autograph in my copy of Dangerous Visions. David R Bunch was also there, a writer with two stories in Dangerous Visions, I asked for his autograph as well. Bunch seemed more like a “normal” human being. Ellison then and forever after seemed like something else entirely. A true live wire, glib, facile, knowledgeable, obviously hard working, well spoken, with charisma to burn. And funny as a standup comedian, he read two of his stories at that convention. Try a Dull Knife, a horrifying story about a less than honorable man who has been fatally stabbed by an angry woman, and of course he asks her “why not try a dull knife!” He also read Street Scene a flat out comedy about a pterodactyl dropping from the sky unto a New York City street. Hearing Harlan read that story to a room full of science fiction fans is one of the greatest memories of my life.
Harlan Ellison totally dominated that regional convention with ease. It was at the 1969 World Science Fiction convention, in St. Louis, Missouri, at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel where I really saw the power of his personality. There were many other writers there, many of whom I recognized. I saw Clifford Simak walk into the lobby, carrying his own luggage. I had just read his novel The Werewolf Principal. I wanted to tell him “welcome to St. Louis Mr. Simak,” and get his autograph, (too chicken shit!) Larry Niven, Harry Harrison, Robert Silverberg and many others were there. If you are not a reader of Science Fiction you probably would not recognize those names. I was in awe to be in the same building with these people. This was a huge convention, taking up the entire hotel. Harlan Ellison again dominated the whole building.

It was the first. and the only time, I have ever witnessed someone dominating a hotel ballroom, with about 500 people in attendance, just by walking in. For some of the conferences, and I made sure I attended everything at that convention, the Khorassan room of the Chase Hotel was packed, and it was truly extraordinary, the entire room would just know that Harlan Ellison had walked in, without him saying a word. And then , once he started to talk, he had the whole room in his hip pocket. I had never seen anything like it, I have not seen it since. At that time, in the world of written science fiction Harlan Ellison was a rock star. And like rock stars he could be a divisive figure . His politics were so hard left he often infuriated the conservative wing of science fiction fandom.

I’ll give you just one example. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama. He called out anybody who did not go on that march as a racist. He also called the student body of a military college “America’s next generation of Nazis.” I can only imagine what he had to say about Trump.

Isaac Asimov called Ellison the only living creature whose natural habitat was hot water. Ellison referred to himself as a malcontent, a desperado, a loose cannon. Would that there were more like him. I am convinced the world is a better place for Harlan Ellison having been in it. I am convinced I am a better person for having read him, extensively, in my formative years. I have tried my best to follow his lead, to have him as a role model, if not an outright hero (I am not comfortable with hero worship, but I realize it is part of the human condition.)

And finally I am ashamed to admit, I wrote a fan letter to Ellison, some time ago. I wanted to tell him how much his work, his life’s work meant to me. I wrote that, if ever he had a “dark night of the soul” wherein he wondered if it had all been worth it .( And quite frankly, what human being has ever lived who did NOT suffer any “dark nights of the soul?”) Ellison had numerous health problems, not least of which was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, which caused him to lose valuable time suffering instead of writing. I told him, that if he ever wondered if his work had lasting value, ever influenced anyone for the better, that I was one of those people. I have made it part of my life to read everything I can possibly work into my daily schedule, and I mean everything. I have made it my life’s work to write, to document, to bear witness to what I see and hear and what occurs in my daily life. Again, I feel I am a better person for having encountered Harlan Ellison, on the page and in person.

I did not mail that letter, I am not sure why. I thanked him for his work and asked for an interview, which he freely gave, many times. Was I still afraid that if I interviewed him he might call me out as a “schmuck?” I not only did not mail that letter, now I can’t find it! It is somewhere in my files, no matter, he is gone now and the best I can do is write this tribute to one of the great writers, one of the great artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

I have rambled on enough, Ellison’s words stand on their own, his legacy is secure. But as a final tribute I will now make an attempt to write a paragraph, or two, in the style of Harlan Ellison. Forgive me if I fail, if I piss anybody off, I have succeeded.

What!!! You’ve never read or heard of Harlan Ellison? What are you? A schmuck! You have no idea of the wonderment and the joy and the honesty and the plain old great story telling you are missing. Maybe you’re too busy staring at that hand held computer that has turned so many citizens into mindless zombies. If you have any self respect at all and want to be more than you are right now, see this documentary about Harlan Ellison “Dreams with Sharp Teeth!” Better yet, get your dumb ass to the library or to your local book store and buy or check out the Essential Ellison, a massive book covering his stories from the 1950s to the 2010s. Read! A library card is cheaper than cable tv, or a blu ray player or your cell phone service. Cheaper because it is free! Where ever you live you can check out and read books for free. Read Death Bird Stories, Approaching Oblivion or Dangerous Visions. Read, and think about what you are reading. And don’t just read Ellison, libraries are full of great books by great authors. Or maybe you prefer to be another mindless, brain dead zombie stumbling into walls or walking into oncoming traffic and getting run over and seeing your own intestines because you are too busy staring at that GOD DAMN CELL PHONE SCREEN! (End of tribute.)

Harlan, if you reading this from the other side, I hope I have done you justice. Please rest in peace, you have earned it. You did what you could! Harlan Ellison died on June 28 this year. Now go to the library.