Cram DeRux is a major international star -- in his own mind. Throughout is 13 year, five film career as an "actor", DeRux has consistently amazed the viewing public with his enthusiasm for poor material. Although no DeRux vehicle has ever done better than break even (especially when the costs of litigation are considered), DeRux, nonetheless, has an ineffable, yet ineluctable charm.
Below is the authoritative filmography of this arrogant demi-star
Cram DeRux received some critical acclaim for his first film, Attack of the Mutant Lobster (1985), in a supporting role to the film's star, Larry the Lobster. DeRux was easily the best thing about this tedious prop epic about a mammoth irradiated crustacean that terrorized a quaint Cape Cod village.
DeRux's raw sexuality and complete lack of humility obviously appealed to a certain insecure element in his audience, causing the creation of the first Cram DeRux Fan Club. After his humiliating relegation to the second screen of the credits, DeRux exclaimed: "With God as my witness, I'll never be listed under the title again!
Based on the ripple of mild interest he received for Attack, Cram insisted upon, and received, billing above the title in what was planned to be his next epic, Revenge of the Craw, a sequel that went bankrupt after 16 weeks of filming and was never completed. Allegations that Cram blew the film's budget on YooHoos, Hostess Cupcakes, and the lavish appointments of his dressing room were never substantiated by the Grand Jury. All charges were dismissed in 1986.
Bouyed by this success, Cram played several roles in his next film, Dinosaurs: The 5 W's and the H (1987), as well as a cameo as himself. This film, a putative documentary, marked his second collaboration with director Darlene Darnell, who had been linked to DeRux in the tabloids ever since sharing a Cape Cod cottage with him during the filming of Attack. "DeRux Drools Over Director Diva Darnell" screamed one particularly rabid headline.
DeRux's portrayal of the turgid Dr. Manfred Horscht inspired dozens of impressionable teens to adopt the ill-fitting knit cap and cranberry down coat garb of the character. The revelation that the "monolith" presented in the film as a new archeological discovery was in fact a bowling ball photographed at close range only served to increase the popularity of the film, even as it depleted the legal defense fund.
DeRux's best known role by far was as the demented Capt. Smirk of the starship Real Beater in 1988's Star Party Animals or The Alien Craw -- First Blood Part 12 . . . The Final Chapter, Revisited, the first movie produced by DeRux and Darnell's Double D/Twin Towers Productions. SPATACFBP12TFCR featured DeRux's demented score, a blatant rip off of the frat party classic, Louie, Louie. (Ensuing litigation was dropped after the opposing lawyer found the head of a parakeet in his sushi.)
Star Party Animals, the first DeRux vehicle to feature a recognizable plot, follows the exploits of a crew of misfits as they seek out strange new worlds to party on. DeRux's Capt. Smirk is the spoiled scion of a galactic fertilizer dynasty who, after washing out of the Galactic Starfighters Academy, has been given a ship by his father and asked to go away. And go away he does -- to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, in search of new pleasures. Darnell appears as the voluptuous, snarling communications officer Katrina Krusher. Hoodeet is the Alien Glozixx, navigational officer and cook; Capt. Copycoldcocker is Science Officer Rodmann; and newcomer Zack makes his debut as Medical Officer Vampire of the Eagles.
The Real Beater crew visits several worlds, including an amusing turn on Luggage World, which showcases a bravura (but uncredited) performance by Dean DeDream as Pedro, the luggage-meister. Somehow, Darnell and DeRux manage to work in a favorite theme -- dinosaurs -- during a corny sojourn on a world that looks suspiciously like someone's back yard. The sets are cheesy, the dialog barely audible, and the acting, especially DeRux's, is over the top, but somehow, DeRux's prodigious appetites notwithstanding, the movie enjoyed a successful release.
Double D/Twin Towers' next project was the whodunit The Duck Is Relaxed (1990). Billed as the first Dick and Dora mystery, and by far the most professional of the DD/TT productions, it was filmed in a whirlwind weekend on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The first DD/TT production to feature off-line editing, it is rumored to also be the first in which scenes were actually shot out of sequence and assembled later in the edit. Unfortunately, Darnell and DeRux's unfamiliarity with this technique resulted in several fantastic continuity problems, including a really muddy night-for-day beach sequence.
Cram DeRux stars (naturally) as down-on-his-luck-gumshoe Dick "Duck" Duckweed. In a recurring sight gag, Dora, the ingenue, utters his nickname, Duck, and DeRux jerks his head down and skitters like a crab on a string of firecrackers. The plot is standard whodunit fare: Doris hires Duck, who has been reduced to living out of his car, to find the author of a threatening note sent to Doris' pet lobster, Little Claw. The pair clumsily pursue clues to Bob's Busy Beach Barnacle Bunker, where they encounter a number of odd characters, including kitchen scullions Zeno ("L'Imigra, L'Imigra!") and Achmed ("I believe I'll have an Orangina"), and barfly/vamp Kit E. Kitty.
The film's title comes from the fumblethumbed detective's lame attempt at concocting a discreet password: "Dora, remember, I'll just say, 'The duck is relaxed.' Got it? 'The duck is relaxed.' Remember that." There are many theories as to the true origin and meaning of the phrase, but none that may be mentioned in a family publication.
After an abnormally long hiatus, during which Cram DeRux checked into and out of no less than twelve 12 step clinics, Double D/Twin Towers came roaring back with the spoof Rumbo in the Jungle (1993). A cross between a puerile Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily?, Rumbo appears at first blush to be appropriational art of the lowest kind. Meaningless live action (apparently of a family super soaker fight) is interspersed with clips stolen from grade Z monster movies, with pitiful dialog and sound effects amateurishly overdubbed by DeRux, Darnell, and Zack. As you would expect from a DD/TT production, no attempt is made to synchronize the dialog with the lip movements of the alleged actors.
The result, surprisingly, is a sonic tapestry overlaid on an astonishingly satisfying pastiche of schlock and found filmic art. Also surprisingly, the strongest performances are not DeRux and Darnell (as Rambette), but rather Capt. Copycoldcocker as the strident Major, and the voluptuous Mary Ann Scary as Rambabe. Copycoldcocker's pole-up-the-butt performance is enhanced by DeRux's overdubbed Schwartzeneggerian rasp: "Yah! Vat iss dat moosic I am hearing? Does someboddy got a boombox?"; "Yah! Bergantinia: it iss as beautiful as it is vast!"
Since, once again, litigation has slowed the grinding of the fertile wheels of Double D/Twin Towers, the future of their celluloid collaborations is, once again, once again, in jeopardy. At this writing, Woody Allen has dropped plans for a suit (claiming it was "beneath my dignity"), but the producers of Day of the Monsters are pressing ahead with their charges (easily proven) that 10 minutes of the movie was lifted directly from their property and merely overdubbed by DeRux and Darnell. Cram DeRux has responded, "Hey! It wasn't 10 minutes in a row, for crying out loud!"
It is this reviewer's fervent hope that, once again, Cram DeRux and Darlene Darnell will be vindicated, or at least outlast their tormentors, and be free to unleash their adequate, but twisted, creative talents again. Rumor has it that they have, despite the restraining order, secretly begun work on a new film, Cram DeRux's Frankenberry. But the pair are playing it coy. DeRux responded when this reviewer cornered him at a local Target, "Video tape? What video tape? No, I'm not buying video tape. Hey, how'd this get in my cart?"