Plot:
A dirty bearded beatnik graces a coffeehouse with his eccentric verse. We see Walter Paisley bussing tables.
Leonard, the hipper version of Mel Cooley for the Dick Van Dyke Show, is mocking the extremely shy Walter. He has admitted how much he enjoyed Carla’s work.
Outside, a cowboy hat attired beatnik reports into the police.
The great Maxwell scorns Walter’s praise of his poetry.
The comedic beatniks are approached by a couple of dumpy middle aged squares to find an artist. Walter repeats Maxwell’s verse to the couple. We learn that Walter is working
on a project.
Our forlorn geek heads to his tiny apartment. He tries sculpting a pile of clay but is distracted by a cat that is trapped in his wall. A knife shouldn’t be used to cut a cat out of the
wall. Accidentally, Walter stabs the cat before getting it out of the wall. Profusely apologizing, he ponders what to do with it.
Walter returns to his sculpting with little success before breaking down. Awakening in the morning, he is reciting part of Maxwell’s poem. With a fury, he returns to the clay.
Later, Walter wants to show Carla his work. It is a statue of a dead cat with a knife in the side.
It doesn't look like a dead cat, more like a bloated wombat.
Carla is very impressed with the work. Leonard offers to display it in the coffeehouse for sale. Walter is ecstatic.
Later, Art, the cowboy beatnik, comes in the coffee shop when Walter mentions his sculpture. Maxwell, the poet, is even impressed with Walter’s work. He announces Walter as
a great sculptor.
Everyone congratulates Walter. Leonard talks to Walter and gives him the rest of the night off.
Some beatnik chick apparently got her motor revved by Walter’s work. Yes, Walter has found his first art groupie.
Take me now and show me the artistic genius in your pants.
She gives him a bottle of pills as he leaves. Lou, the undercover cop follows him.
Walter returns to his room. Lou pays a visit and wants to know where he got his heroin. Lou is a cop and is going to arrest Walter. He gets hysterical and afraid that Lou will
shoot him. Walter clocks him upside the head with a frying pan.
You could have accepted the pancakes even if they weren't wheat germ.
Obviously, freaked out by it, he hides the body before the landlady checks on him.
Walter is cleaning up the blood and apologizing to Lou, too. As he’s talking to himself, he gets an idea.
Later, Art reports Lou is missing.
The next day, Leonard drops Dead Cat and finds patch of fur.
The police start searching for Lou.
Folk singing about a murderer ensues at the coffee shop. Walter is awfully jumpy. Leonard starts ridiculing him again. Leonard is going to call the cops until being offered $500
for Dead Cat.
Walter invites Leonard and Carla to see his next work: Murdered Man. It is a full body statue with a bashed in head. Carla is impressed. Leonard is disturbed. He doesn’t want to
show single pieces. Walter should put together a show. Leonard gives him some money and drags Carla out of the apartment. Walter is ecstatic, now a professional.
At the coffeehouse, the comedic beats and several others are chilling. Walter stops by. Maxwell and the beats suggest that he do a female figure next. Alice, the model, scorns
Walter and can’t believe he’s an artist. Walter leaves.
Alice heads to her apartment. Walter follows her. He wants to have her model for him. At his apartment, Alice gets naked. Walter has he wear a scarf and chokes her with it.
At the beat house, Maxwell and the beats are visited by Walter. He has finished another piece. The model is in clay. The beats are impressed. Maxwell wants to have a party to
celebrate Walter’s work.
A Burger King crowned Walter with toilet plunger scepter basks in the glory of the beats on the throne of power. It isn’t a porcelain one. Maxwell composes a poem to
Walter. Leonard is very nervous throughout the entire party. Walter is almost to the drunken level of Richard Burton.
Walter staggers home and realizes he needs to do another piece. A construction worker is working late. A poem spouting Walter attacks the guy and pushes into a table saw.
The next day, Walter shows Leonard his new piece. It is a bust of a human head. Leonard heard about a killing where the head was taken. He tries convincing Walter to stop
sculpting. When that does work, he offers to help him get an art show of his works together.
Maxwell wasn’t invited to the art show but is going to crash it anyways. Walter stops by to pick up Carla. As they walk to the show, he tries to profess his feelings for
her. Apparently, Carla just thinks of him as friend. The distraught Walter offers to make a statue of her.
At the art show, Walter is off by himself, brooding. The comedic beats can’t get in the place. Carla admires the female statue and spots a small spot of flesh uncovered by
clay. She tells Walter about a body in the statue.
Carla is suitably disturbed by Walter’s idea about making people immortal through his work. She runs out of the show with Walter chasing her.
This part is a kind of hard to grasp. Suddenly, everyone at the show realizes that people are in the statutes.
Art, Maxwell, and beats are to the rescue.
Carla is hiding from Walter who is still searching for her.
Walter begins hearing the voices of his victims. They tell him to go to home.
Art is after Walter.
Walter is hiding and rushes to his room. He is going to hide grabbing some clay.
Art, the beats, Maxwell storm in the room and find Walter hanging from the ceiling.
Maxwell proclaims it Walter’s greatest work: “Hanging Man”.
