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The Gullible is Alan Smithee’s finest, most criminally-underrated triumph. It is half-hour long, 22 minutes of which is rotoscoped and the rest of which is live-action. Produced in 1990, it tells the tale of three University students looking for something to do on a boring Wednesday night when a horrible prank is played on them and they wind up enlisted in the Navy. It starred Topher Grace, Mos Def, Asia Carerra, Marilyn Monroe, and Humphrey Bogart as “Dad”, and was the most recent film to be shot on CMU’s campus aside from Smart People and Debbie Does Tepper.
At least, that’s what I told prospective audience members last fall when the real film screening on a Wednesday night fell through. There was no film playing that night.
I edit the campus satire paper. We always used to do reviews of the Wednesday night films, until they stopped happening. Then there was this long string of reviews for “No Film” that gradually got less and less funny. Eventually the day came when I’d had enough, and printed a review of The Gullible. “This thriller will probably only entertain some; some will likely walk away disappointed and feel cheated by the film.” I concluded, “It’s totally showing on campus.”
It is an interesting testament to man’s naïve trust for his fellow man that some people didn’t call me out on it. Not everyone raised an eyebrow when I described a film called “The Gullible” about a prank, starring Mos Def and Humphrey Bogart. And the more absurd I made its description, the more interested people got. My housemate expressed genuine regret that he had too much work to do, saying many times that it “sounded awesome” and that we should “Netflix it”. Seeing the momentum I’d built up with word-of-mouth, I took out ads in the paper, started a Facebook event, and postered all over campus.
Finally the big day arrived, and I went to the 8:00 showing. There were about 10 poor bastards wondering where the crowds were, and about as many more people who were in on the joke. I “reminisced” with them about the “best parts” of the movie for about twenty minutes after “the movie was supposed to start.” Then it was time to go back and “talk to the projectionist”, who told me that “the reel wasn’t loaded right”–but they should come back for the 10:00 showing.
