Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It [Gas-s-s-s] ** (1970, Bob Corff, Elaine Giftos, Bud Cort) – Classic Movie Review 10,024

Director Roger Corman’s last American International Pictures film Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It [Gas-s-s-s] (1970) is a ludicrous, sometimes amusing slab of musical-comic hippie fun, a post-apocalyptic black comedy film in which an experimental military nerve gas leaks and kills off all people aged more than 25.

Corman complained that American International ruined it by cutting some of his finest scenes, including the special guest appearance of God, who apparently commented on the action. But they left in the climax when John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Che Guevara and Edgar Allan Poe emerge from a crack in the Earth.

Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It is a campy free love psychotronic counterculture comedy film with music by Country Joe and the Fish and so possibly worth a try to conjure up the spirit of the flower-power era.

The main cast are Bob Corff [Robert Corff], Elaine Giftos, Pat Patterson, George Armitage (as Billy the Kid), Alex Wilson, Ben Vereen, Bud Cort, Cindy Williams, Lou Procopio, Phil Borneo, David Osterhout, Alan DeWitt and Talia Shire [Tally Coppola] and Country Joe McDonald as spokesman AM Radio.

Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It [Gas-s-s-s] is directed by Roger Corman, runs 79 minutes, is made by San Jacinto Productions, is released by American International Pictures (AIP) (1971) (US) and New Realm Entertainments (1973) (UK, is written by George Armitage, is shot by Ron Dexter, is produced by Roger Corman and George Armitage (associate producer), and is scored by Country Joe and the Fish, with Art Direction by David Nichols.

Corman recalled: ‘It was a very inexpensive film. It was shot with a skeleton crew, with a cast of almost entirely amateur actors. There was some sense of disorganisation and experimentation as we went along.’ He said Gas-s-s-s was a deciding factor in leaving AIP. He directed only two more films: Von Richthofen and Brown and Roger Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,024

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