This Roger Corman produced and directed film is a treat. There is a quasi-comical air about the proceedings as a lot of the action takes place in a Beat Generation inspired coffee house where poets and musicians alike share a performance stage, hang out and spout off in exaggerated artistic fashion. In the midst of this “Cool” cafe trundles waiter Walter Paisley, a loner who aspires to be creative and wants something more out of life than just busing tables for the rest of his life. Walter buys a packet of clay and tries his hand at sculpting in his seedy apartment. He becomes quickly frustrated when his efforts don’t yield anything worthwhile. To add to his frustration, the landlady’s cat has gotten itself stuck in his wall. Walter tries to create an opening in the wall for the cat to escape through but the knife he is using accidently impales and kills the cat. In order to hide his mistake, Walter decides to cover the cat’s body with his newly acquired clay complete with the protruding death knife. The result is better than he expected. Impressed by his own handiwork, Walter brings his new “sculpture” to his workplace to be shared and displayed and prove that he has artistic talent too. Walter’s work is immediately praised and allotted a degree of respect. His fans want to know what else Walter is working on and want to see it! The attention he receives is intoxicating. Walter will give the public what it wants!

Walter doesn’t have to wait long to be freshly inspired with a new sculpture as he is tailed home by an undercover cop who works the cafe looking for illicit drug activity. The cop thinks he sees Walter involved in a drug deal and follows Walter home one evening. One thing leads to another and in the ensuing altercation, the cop is killed and Walter covers his body with the clay in the apartment. The new work gets his fanbase even more excited for more works of genius from the former busboy turned Artiste. Walter has found his Muse: Murder.

Nice work by Corman to turn this movie from a satirical view of the Beats and their approach to Art into a rather unsettling essay about a quickly unravelling mind whose artist ruse is concealing a rabid, maladjusted psychopath. Probably Dick Miller’s best role.