Take a celluloid shower with Les Asmussen while he gives a bath to a century of faulty films in WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?, an examination of one hundred more or less of the worst movies ever made and how they got that way.

Asmussen, jobbing actor, celluloid aficionado and reel time raconteur is at his most acerbically amusing dissecting Fox fiascoes, Columbia debacles, Universal stinkers, MGM mangles, Paramount flops, and Warner washouts.

Movies you’d be well advised to miss. And yet…. Movies you should avoid like the plague yet….. see them anyway. Movies you catch at your peril but offer up guilty pleasures as they unspool their naff narratives, absurd scenarios and historical heresies.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? begins with a preamble professing the author would rather sit down to Plan 9 From Outer Space than ever see Dances With Wolves ever again. Why? According to Les, Kevin Costner’s epic western commits the one serious crime of movie going: it bores, it is seemingly interminable.

Of course, one man’s bore is another man’s bounty, one man’s mutton could be another man’s Lady Caroline Lamb, one man’s effervescence is another man’s enervation. It’s all in the eye of Geoffrey Holder.

Like all analytical lexicographers, Les sets to list the chosen films alphabetically with Oliver Stone’s Alexander and John Huston’s Annie, (Huston we have a problem!) but from The Bad Seed the alphabetical suffers a coup, and is gotten the better of as the musings meander into the tributaries of the River Phoenix feeding into the Veronica Lakes.

With the locution of a runaway locomotive, Les shunts the rolling stock of would be laughing stock into side rails and holding yards, calibrating delightful degrees of separation, elucidating on the films of Elvis, the decade of Dick and Liz, and the fortunes (fiscal) and misfortunes(artistic) of Z grade producers, Sam Katzman and Albert Zugsmith.

Les invents delicious dialogue between Bright Young Executives regarding spurious acquisitions and inane pitches that lead to the production of inane pictures.

He casts his censorious cornea over censorship the exercise of which excised pertinent plot points rendering poignant human drama to Hollywood dross.

From the incredible to the incredulous, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? credits a catalogue of catastrophic castings – teens played by twenty somethings, Blacks played by Whites, Orientals played by Occidentals, of Euro puddings turning saga into sago, box office blancmange.

As well as being endlessly entertaining, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? is a treasure trove of trivia. Read it and make trivial pursuit your strong suit, armed as you’ll be with movie minutiae and Tinsel town trifles.

So WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? becomes a triple treat in these days of isolation – a riveting read in its own write, a means to mine questions and answers for quizzes, and a source reference for films you’ve never seen but now your interest piqued must catch.

The pontification is fun and informed, making WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? a fustian bargain where the reward is enjoying what is essentially a bad movie.

Cooler than Halliwell, Hotter than Maltin, Les Asmussen’s WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? is a hoot, a hooray for the horrors of Hollywood, Brit pics and Euro puds.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?: One hundred (more or less) of the WORST movies ever made* *and how they got that way! by Les Asmussen. The book can be purchased for $34 including postage by email. The email contact address is : number.62@optusnet.com.au.