DivX Clásico

The brothers began work on their first 16mm production, a black-and-white noir action drama called Corruption of the Damned (1965). Mike starred, garbed in a trench coat and embroiled in long chase sequences. A marvelously filmed brawl in a flour factory recalls the plaster warehouse punch-up in Kubrick’s 1955 noir Killer’s Kiss. (The Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley recently undertook Corruption as a preservation project, assembling a compilation print from which they struck a new negative, salvaging the film for posterity.)

George Kuchar directing
Floraine Connors in
Corruption of the Damned

With their jump to 16mm, the brothers developed individual, if similar, styles, and would eventually go their separate ways — although they continued to assist on each others’ productions when needed. Corruption of the Damned began in the usual collaborative fashion of the 8mm films, but Mike abandoned it mid-production to embark on a color science fiction film, and George finished it. "That movie is 80% George’s," Mike estimates.