[Note: for a fairly comprehensive list of films Jack appeared in, click here.]

JACK ELAM and his wife, Jenny, were gracious enough to attend our May bad film showing where Jack shared a bunch of hysterical True Life Experiences from his days of making great (and some not-so-great) films. Everyone had a wonderful time, and gave Jack a standing ovation as he left. (This is the equivalent of our Lifetime Achievement Award.) Ed screened the opening scene from Once Upon a Time in the West in which Jack trapped a fly in the barrel of his gun (yes, he really did!), and then screened a short segment from what Jack said was THE worst movie he was ever in: The Norsemen. We then moved on to the main feature, Canonball Run II, which was bad enough!

Thanks, Jack, for being such a good sport! Think of it this way ... the good movies you made are seen all the time on video and cable TV. We dragged up a neglected piece of ... doo-doo ... and shared it with the world once again.

We were truly honored by your presence.

The Bad Film Society will have a Very Special Tribute to Ashland's own, Jack Elam. There will be clips from some of his films and a feature presentation of Cannonball Run II from 1984, one of his exceptionally worst films.

For film buffs, Jack Elam is a national treasure. The quintessential Western Bad Guy in the 1950s and '60s, Jack Elam has appeared in well over a hundred films. Famous for his bulgy eyes and unusual features, Elam made a name for himself with numerous bit parts in Westerns, including such famous westerns as High Noon, Raw Hide, Vera Cruz, Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Comancheroes, and Once Upon A Time In The West. Elam could frighten moviegoers out of their wits and cause them to applaud when he met his inevitable demise. Though instantly recognizable as a heavy, he is also accepted without hesitation as comic relief. He also starred in such TV series as Gunsmoke, Sugarfoot, The Dakotas, Temple Houston, and The Texas Wheelers. By the 1970s he became, in his words, "Too fat to get on a horse". Well into the 1980s he appeared in Cannonball Run II.

Now, quietly retired in Ashland, I met Jack because we are both members of the Ashland Elks Lodge. When I mentioned to him that I was going to show Cannonball Run II, he said “Why do you want to show that piece of crap?!”

“Exactly!” I thought.

He said it was just an excuse for the actors to get together and party.

Burt Reynolds put out some of the worst films ever to be seen by human eyes but Cannonball Run II takes the cake. Clearly, Burt Reynolds had made some pact with the devil, and the devil came in the form of Dom DeLuise burning up the screen as Captain Chaos. The sheer number of washed up actors and actresses parading around, driving at high speeds and the ridiculous stunts gives the film a surrealism that almost makes it a commentary on pop-art culture. See Tony Danza with a rowdy ape, Shirley MacLaine & Marilu Henner as nuns, Jamie Farr as an Arab oil sheik, Jack Elam, Jim Nabors, Ricardo Montalban, Sid Caesar, Charles Nelson Reilly, Telly Savalas, Susan Anton and Catherine Bach and many others hamming it up in what looks like a tacky home movie. In retrospect, however, CANNONBALL RUN II earns a footnote in film history for containing not only one of the first English-speaking performances of martial-arts star Jackie Chan, but also for featuring the last on-screen teaming of the three seminal Rat Pack members, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin (his last screen appearance). This film is a Bizarre Hoot!