Shades of Donald Trump! Penny Lane's NUTS is another great American story about fakery

What absolute, unencumbered, hoot-and-a-half fun is NUTS!, the new documentary directed by Penny Lane (of Our Nixon fame) and very cleverly written by Thom Stylinski. Combining with flair, humor and -- eventually -- not a little sadness, the film uses charming, stylish animation along with grand archival footage and a smart narration that probes America's past and still current (hence the headline reference to Donald Trump) inclination to make wealthy heroes out of lying trash.

The antagonist of Nuts! is one, John Romulus Brinkley, little known today but in his time -- the early 1900s -- one of the most famous men in these whole United States. But famous for what? For curing impotence by transplanting goat testicles into (or maybe onto: his methods, as you will see, are a tad unclear) the human male. Ms Lane, shown at right, tells the tale of this man (of whom TrustMovies and I wager most of his readers had never before heard) with such cleverness and gusto that she yanks us into the crazy story full on.

Brinkley, shown above (in animated form) and below in an old (and I suspect colorized) photo, was a practicing doctor in a small Kansas town who made his discovery in 1917, went on to become one of the country's major celebrities and wealthiest citizens, transplanted thousands of those goat testicles, ran for governor of Kansas (could he have been any worse than Kansas' current cretin, Sam Brownback?), introduced to Americans everything from the infomercial to junk mail, and created the world's most powerful radio station (broadcasting out of Mexico yet -- to circumvent laws that America's medical and broadcasting establishments had created to put him out of business). This guy was something else!

Something else indeed. Ms Lane's great notion here is to base much of her documentary on Brinkley's story, as told by the biography of the man written at the time of his rise. It's a whopper, in so many ways, but also a terrific tale. So we are put in the place of those adulatory fans who no doubt bought that book and drunk in every word. Sort of like Mr. Trump's followers have done with "the Donald's" own books, TV shows and ridiculous rhetoric from the podium.

During this delightful and rather short doc -- it lasts but 79 minutes -- we also meet Brinkey's bête noire, an American Medical Association-sanctioned fellow named Morris Fishbein (above, right), who dogs the good doctor's trail over years. My current gut feeling about the AMA and its sometimes abusive powers put me in mind to dislike Mr. Fishbein, but Ms Lane wisely allows a scenario to eventually emerge that is quite a bit different from that of the Brinkley "biography."

What we learn from all this is not just vastly entertaining but also salutary. It's always good to be reminded how easily charlatans can become powerful and how quickly a large portion of the general populace can be made to follow them. From the doctor's supposed first "goat gland" patient (above) to the woman he marries (well, one of them) and the son he fathers and helps raise (below), we move through a life that seems devoted to success and achievement but is actually all about something quite other. The manner in which Lane shows us (in animation) what happened to that son, juxtaposed against a recorded message from his father, is beautifully and artfully handled.

Nuts! brings to life and art so much of what passess, then and now, as the sort of American Dream that eventually turns into the American nightmare -- from which, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Fishbein, the USA managed to awake. But who will help us today, given the way in which corporate power and the media have embraced our latest example of egotism, narcissism and fraud? Maybe Ms Lane, even as I type, is preparing a look at this present-day subject. After all, she 's already covered I-am-not-a-crook Richard Nixon and I-cure-impotence-using-goat-glands Dr. Brinkley. Why not Mr. I-make-the-best-steaks-education-casinos-and-walls?

To get a rich and full look at the damage Mr. Trump can bring to a country, its citizens and environment via one of his "projects," try to view the sad and wonderful little documentary You've Been Trumped, but meanwhile, do see this exhilarating new doc, Nuts!, from Ms Lane and released via Cartuna. The movie opens tomorrow in its U.S. theatrical premiere at Film Forum in New York City for a two-week run.  Elsewhere? Definitely. The following week, you can see it in -- yes! -- Kansas City, Missouri. Then look for it to screen all across the country in the weeks and months to come. Click here and scroll down to view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. (Even Kansas itself -- one city, at least -- is going to get a look at this smart new film.) 

OUR NIXON: A really odd walk down memory lane -- from Penny Lane

Whew! This is one bizarre documentary, particularly for folk like me who lived as an adult through the Nixon years, often kicking and screaming. (It is made further strange for me by the connection with the bizarre Christian Science religion that I shared with some of Nixon's top staff -- Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Egil Krogh -- though I had left the faith by the point in time that this documentary covers.) What makes OUR NIXON strangest of all is its style: Collected here are what looks like a bunch of home movies, often made by the people at and in the Nixon White House, so that these snippets most resemble the kind of thing that you and I and our own families might have put together. Except, of course, that front and center is -- not granny or your favorite uncle, but instead Richard Milhous Nixon and his parade of (what he would surely want us to imagine as) world-shattering events.

Director and co-producer (with Brian L. Frye) Penny Lane (shown at left) has contrived to give us many of the typical events and usual suspects but not from the usual viewpoint we received at this time from newspapers or the nightly news. Instead we get the view as though it were via the one big happy family that served its master and just happened to film it all. All this functions in a couple of ways: defusing, at least somewhat, much of what many of us feel about this 37th President of the U.S. and at the same time giving us a look at things from a perspective we have not seen. The effect is bracing, often disorienting -- and undeniably weird.

Though maybe it will all seem much less strange to dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. Here it all is: the Pope arrives; there goes John Mitchell (but where is some wonderful footage of his Martha?!); Nixon blathers as men walk on the moon; we get a look at the very early Barbara Walters (above, center, right) as Nixon "opens" China; wow--a visit from Romania's Ceaucescu and his wife (the USA always did -- still does -- love those dictators!); the "Don't tell Henry" moment (gosh, the petty jealousies between Nixon and Kissinger!); and of course Watergate and so much more. There's even a song (below): "Nixon Now for You and Me!")

If you are in any way political, you'll already know how you feel about all of this. Yet, as they say, time is a healer of sorts, so seeing it again via home movies does rather tamp down those angrier feelings. All-home-movies-all-the-time would require more narration, I suspect, so Ms Lane smartly includes quite a bit of official or news footage from the era, which has the effect of adding some professionalism into the mix, while helping keep us alert.

By the time we see "our Nixon" send packing his two right-hand men, Haldeman (above, quite the shutterbug!) and Ehrlichman (below) to prevent, the Prez hoped, his own resignation or worse, and then follow this with his sanctimonious "God bless America -- and every one of you," we're more than ready to bid this guy the long good-bye.

But don't leave your seat too soon. Stay for the end credits that fill you in on what happened and to whom -- as well as let you see the famously unbearable, and it turns out also un-airable, TV commercial for ice cream hawked by Mr. Ehrlichman in his post-administration days. This is a hoot-and-a-half.

Our Nixon -- from Cinedigm and CNN Films and running just 80 minutes -- opens theatrically this Friday, August 30, in New York City at the IFC Center, followed by a limited national rollout.