(There are Spoilers) Roger Corman's 1959 movie about the 1950's Beatnik Generation and a guy who just didn't fit into that exclusive group of artists and intellectuals. Until he found a talent, that he didn't know that he had, that in no time at all made him world famous.
Being a busboy at this beatnik café, The Yellow Door, in Greenwich Village shy and nerdy Walter Paisley, Dick Miller, could only hope to become part of the gang of free living loving and thinking beatniks who patronizes that establishment. Watching and listening to all the great ideas poems and music by the many great minds who spend their time at the hip and swinging Yellow Door Café Walter can only hope that their brilliance would one day rub off on him.
Depressed at the thought that he just about reached his epitome in life as a busboy, and not being that good at it either, Walter finally hears his call one evening in hearing his landlady's cat stuck inside his wall. It's then that Walter in his confused state of mind tries to free the trapped cat with an icepick. The icepick eventually punchers and kills the cat, Frankie, but it also gives Walter, who's playing around with what looks like "Silly Puddy", an idea of hiding the animal's body. Covering it with clay Walter later tries to pawn off the dead and entombed, in clay, feline to his boss Leonard de Santis, Antony Carbone, as a sculpture that he created.
The sight of the cat sculpture, with an icepick stuck in it, just drove de Santis and everyone else at the café wild. This has to be one of the greatest works of art since the the construction of the Eiffel Tower! Everyone including the café poet laureate Maxwell H. Block,Julian Burton, who wouldn't give poor Walter the time of day is now so enamored by his work and talent that he hold Walter, who thinks the world of Maxwell, up as an example of being the ultimate achievement in the long and bumpy road to human creativity and perfection.
As one would expect Walter's blessing, as an artist, in the end turned out to be a curse in making him both swell headed as well as homicidal in creating future works of art. Being slipped an envelope of heroin by one of his now many admirers the goofy and incoherent Naolia, Jhean Burton, Walter is later confronted in his shabby apartment by the undercover cop who saw the transaction Officer Lou Raby, Bert Convy. About to arrest the totally innocent man, how the hell did he know what Naolia slipped him was dope, Raby is smashed over the head with a frying pan by an hysterical Walter killing him.
Walter now uses his new found talent to not only cover up his crime but cover up the dead Officer Raby, with clay, as well. Going on a murder spree in creating more works of art, clay coated human cadavers, Walter plans to kill all those who used to kick him around when he was just a lowly busboy. Walter's next victim is the arrogant and sarcastic Alice,Judy Bamber, who still thinks that he a no-talent fraud. That low opinion of himself by Alice in the end not only hurt Walter's very sensitive feeling but ended up hurting her as well; she became Walters next artistic masterpiece.
***SPOILER ALERT***The end for the by now maniacal, who was so sweet harmless and likable in the beginning, Walter Pailey came at his own hand. Even with all his talent and popularity Walter still couldn't get his fellow café worker the pretty waitress Carla, Barboura Morris,to both fall in love and marry him. It's not that Walter wasn't suffering from being rejected, as her husband and lover, by Carla it was that he felt that now being the big man that he is she rejected not only him but his work as an artist as well! That in effect demanded from him immediate and deadly payback.
It was that now that Walter finally made a name for himself as a world renowned artist and sculptor he was treated by his love from afar Carla as the simple-minded adolescent, Carla looked down at Walter as if he were her kid or baby brother, that he really is! That in the end finally drove the very unstable Walter over the edge together with his both promising and murderous future in the world of Art.
Being a busboy at this beatnik café, The Yellow Door, in Greenwich Village shy and nerdy Walter Paisley, Dick Miller, could only hope to become part of the gang of free living loving and thinking beatniks who patronizes that establishment. Watching and listening to all the great ideas poems and music by the many great minds who spend their time at the hip and swinging Yellow Door Café Walter can only hope that their brilliance would one day rub off on him.
Depressed at the thought that he just about reached his epitome in life as a busboy, and not being that good at it either, Walter finally hears his call one evening in hearing his landlady's cat stuck inside his wall. It's then that Walter in his confused state of mind tries to free the trapped cat with an icepick. The icepick eventually punchers and kills the cat, Frankie, but it also gives Walter, who's playing around with what looks like "Silly Puddy", an idea of hiding the animal's body. Covering it with clay Walter later tries to pawn off the dead and entombed, in clay, feline to his boss Leonard de Santis, Antony Carbone, as a sculpture that he created.
The sight of the cat sculpture, with an icepick stuck in it, just drove de Santis and everyone else at the café wild. This has to be one of the greatest works of art since the the construction of the Eiffel Tower! Everyone including the café poet laureate Maxwell H. Block,Julian Burton, who wouldn't give poor Walter the time of day is now so enamored by his work and talent that he hold Walter, who thinks the world of Maxwell, up as an example of being the ultimate achievement in the long and bumpy road to human creativity and perfection.
As one would expect Walter's blessing, as an artist, in the end turned out to be a curse in making him both swell headed as well as homicidal in creating future works of art. Being slipped an envelope of heroin by one of his now many admirers the goofy and incoherent Naolia, Jhean Burton, Walter is later confronted in his shabby apartment by the undercover cop who saw the transaction Officer Lou Raby, Bert Convy. About to arrest the totally innocent man, how the hell did he know what Naolia slipped him was dope, Raby is smashed over the head with a frying pan by an hysterical Walter killing him.
Walter now uses his new found talent to not only cover up his crime but cover up the dead Officer Raby, with clay, as well. Going on a murder spree in creating more works of art, clay coated human cadavers, Walter plans to kill all those who used to kick him around when he was just a lowly busboy. Walter's next victim is the arrogant and sarcastic Alice,Judy Bamber, who still thinks that he a no-talent fraud. That low opinion of himself by Alice in the end not only hurt Walter's very sensitive feeling but ended up hurting her as well; she became Walters next artistic masterpiece.
***SPOILER ALERT***The end for the by now maniacal, who was so sweet harmless and likable in the beginning, Walter Pailey came at his own hand. Even with all his talent and popularity Walter still couldn't get his fellow café worker the pretty waitress Carla, Barboura Morris,to both fall in love and marry him. It's not that Walter wasn't suffering from being rejected, as her husband and lover, by Carla it was that he felt that now being the big man that he is she rejected not only him but his work as an artist as well! That in effect demanded from him immediate and deadly payback.
It was that now that Walter finally made a name for himself as a world renowned artist and sculptor he was treated by his love from afar Carla as the simple-minded adolescent, Carla looked down at Walter as if he were her kid or baby brother, that he really is! That in the end finally drove the very unstable Walter over the edge together with his both promising and murderous future in the world of Art.