Captain Beefheart vs. The Grunt People
In the back of the studio, next to the toilet, I built a totally implausible, two-dimensional, cardboard rocket ship. I painted all the sets myself and wrote a script based on the people and facilities available at the time: Captain Beefheart vs. the Grunt People. Then came the hard part -- trying to raise money to make the movie.
Captain Beefheart vs. The Grunt People! This is a feature-length film, presently in script form, written by Zappa in 1964. Zappa said that thanks in part to Easy Rider and the Woodstock Music & Art Fair - "two of several things finally showing the youth market really means business" - three major studios have made offers to back the flick. Zappa also said that if anyone had shown interest in the film five years ago, he would never have played rock and roll. His "ideal cast" includes parts for, among others, Don Van Vliet, who is better known as Captain Beefheart, an old high school chum of Zappa's; Chester Burnett, better known as Howlin' Wolf, several of the Mothers of Invention, and Grace Slick.
