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If I had to pick a defining segment of Joe Dante’s The Movie Orgy—which played to an elated full house at the Nightingale on Saturday—it would be the part that uses images of U.S. soldiers hunting giant locusts to illustrate a 60s pop song called “War Baby.” Occurring somewhere in the third or fourth hour (it’s hard to keep track), the sequence brings together two of Orgy‘s major subjects, 50s sci-fi and U.S. jingoism, in such a way that each one seems a reflection on the other. The song is a cheesy rock ballad that describes American intervention in Vietnam as a continuation of our nation’s duty in World War II—a bastardization of youth culture that likely fooled no one but has a decent chorus all the same. The images come from a 1957 schlockfest called Beginning of the End (which, like much of Orgy‘s source material, later wound up on Mystery Science Theater 3000).
