“A film ahead of its time.” This was the common observation of the surviving cast members of the classic surrealist comedy “Bad Bananas Sa Puting Tabing.”

“When it was shown in cinemas, wala masyadong natawa because it’s a little a bit ahead of its time. Natuwa ako kasi na-restore na. I hope matawa na ang audience ngayon,” said Jaime Fabregas before the screening of the film he did in 1983 with Christopher de Leon, Edgar “Bobot” Mortiz, Jay Ilagan, and Johnny Delgado.

De Leon, Ilagan, Mortiz, and Delgado were also the producers of the film, which was directed by Peque Gallaga with a script written by Jose Javier Reyes.

As friends in show business and in real life, they called themselves the “Bad Bananas,” thus the title of the film.

The restored and remastered version had its premiere screening last Tuesday, August 6, at The Dream Theater or Tanghalang Manuel Conde of the Cultural Center of the Philippines as part of Digital Classics’ section of the still-ongoing Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival.

Amid the crowd of young viewers who trooped to gala screenings of competition films in nearby venues, some titos and titas of Manila at the Little Theater lobby of the CCP had a big surprise when De Leon, Mortiz, and Fabregas walked in for the film’s premiere organized by the ABS-CBN Film Restoration Group as part of its Sagip Pelikula project.

Delgado and Ilagan had passed away. Delgado was represented by his wife, Laurice Guillen, and their daughter, actress Ina Feleo.

Guillen is the president of Cinemalaya Foundation, the moving force behind the festival.

“Of course we miss Johnny and Jay. They would have been here, they would love to be here,” she said before the screening.

CRAZY, MIND-BLOWING

“I think this was Peque’s second film after he did ‘Oro, Plata, Mata,’ so imagine coming from a very serious theme like that,” Fabregas said.

Fabregas plays Lastico, probably one of the craziest villains ever created in Philippine cinema. He has the most absurd reason for being the bad guy.

From what we understand, Lastico is a treasure hunter and a descendant of Ferdinand Magellan, described in history books as the Portuguese explorer in the 16th century who organized a Spanish fleet to circumnavigate the world. Magellan, as we all know, was killed by Lapu-Lapu in the island of Mactan in Cebu.

Now, it has become Lastico’s mission in life to avenge the death of his legendary ancestor. He wants to file cases against who he perceived as the descendants of Lapu-Lapu.

As he verbalizes this in the film: “Madaming kamag-anak ngayon si Lapu-Lapu na nagkalat.” So he’d file a class suit versus the Filipinos before the United Nations Dispute Tribunal. If he wins, he could be the owner and ruler of the Philippines.

To finance this, Lastico is looking for some hidden treasures. But first, he has to find the map that is illustrated under a Mexican hat. This hat, for some strange twist, accidentally lands in the hands of a group of four young happy-go-lucky adventurers from the Philippines composed of Errol (De Leon), Herman (Ilagan), Peewee (Mortiz), and Tasio (Delgado).

How they end up in Mexico is something as absurd as Lastico’s mission in life.

The story actually begins when this wacky group goes on a scuba diving trip from one of the islets in the Hundred Islands National Park off the shores of Alaminos City in Pangasinan province. Their main objective is simply to get some beer in a nearby island called Quezon.

Herman, the lead diver, messes up with his navigation gadgets. And the next thing they know, they are on the shores of Mexico. If that isn’t as absurd as it gets, you’d wonder what on earth Gallaga and Reyes were smoking at the time.

“When they gave me the material for this movie and I learned it’s going to be directed by Peque Gallaga, my reaction was, ‘Are we really going to do this?’” De Leon said, laughing as he spoke before a jam-packed crowd at the Dream Theater, incidentally the only venue at the CCP designed for film screening.

“But we had a great time as we went [shooting] in some parts of Mexico, the [snowy mountains of] Lone Pine in California, and a desert,” said De Leon, now in his early 60s, as he tried to recall other film locations. They were only in their early to mid-20s when they did the film.

“I agree with Jimmy (Fabregas). This is a crazy, really crazy, mind-blowing [film] ahead of its time,” said De Leon.

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP

“Eto ‘yung kalokohan namin noong araw. Sana puwede pa,” said Mortiz, laughing at the recall, during a post-screening interview at The Little Theater lobby being taped by a crew from the ABS-CBN Film Restoration group.

Mortiz recalled when they were shooting in some parts of Mexico and California, they were unable to get permits so they had to pretend they were film students.

“Kami-kami rin ‘yung crew. Pero imagine kahit wala kaming permit, ang dami naming nagawa, like ‘yung scene na may nahulog na kotse sa bangin. Totoo ‘yun, nagawa namin ‘yun,” he said, laughing at the thought of it.

In some scenes, Gallaga and other members of the crew were acting as tourists, bar crowd, and marketplace vendors – anything.

Even the four lead actors had other short roles. De Leon played a Mexican lady vendor in the market, with a piece of cloth hiding his “bigote.” Delgado played a “pistolero” who challenges Errol (De Leon) in a gun duel. Mortiz played a trigger-happy drunken Mexican soldier. Ilagan became a flamboyant gay Pinoy lifestyle journalist on assignment to write about the mountains of Mexico, or something like that.

Nora Aunor, then De Leon’s wife, had a supporting role as a mysterious agent trailing the four Bad Bananas.

The female lead was former theater-film actress and now US-based Gigette Reyes. Based on what we’ve read, she used to be a member of the Philippine Theater Educational Association. In the film, she played Macy, an employee of the Mexican embassy and the four guys’ all-around girl, Friday. Macy is also the love interest of Peewee (Ilagan).

Guillen also had a cameo role as a Mexican señorita crying over the death of her husband.

She recalled: “The girlfriends, wives, friends of the four at the time had cameo roles in the movie. I wasn’t in Mexico, but I had an idea how absurd [the shooting] was. So when I did my scene, I made it as absurd as it can be.”

There were also the top female actresses of the time like Hilda Koronel, Sandy Andolong, Amy Austria, and Rio Locsin. All had their hilarious moments in the film.

Koronel played one of the Mexican girls in a bar who Errol (De Leon) flirts with. Locsin played a gorgeous biker, a Pinay expat who tells the clueless Bad Bananas they’re not in Mexico, Pampanga but in the country of tacos and tequila.

What we remember of Austria’s role is a lady in leather pants with a pistol raiding a house where the four boys are hiding. Andolong played a distressed Mexican mother with a crying boy. She is also the one who gets to slap Errol (De Leon) the hardest.

“Eto ‘yung pelikula na lahat ng co-actors ko nasampal ako. Pero pinakamalakas galing sa asawa ko,” De Leon said, referring to Andolong.

During the filming, his wife then was Aunor but we all know that when they got separated, De Leon married Andolong. He added Andolong couldn’t make it to the premiere because she’s in a taping.

There were also cameos of then start-up actors. The very young Ronnie Lazaro and the late Bomber Moran played drunks in a Mexican bar. Lazaro couldn’t make it to the premiere.

Some scenes were shot in old Hispanic houses and structures in the Philippines. Many were done in the century-old Cape Bojeador Lighthouse in Burgos, Ilocos Norte. But in the film, it was supposed to be in an old town in Mexico.

LIKE IT WAS 1983

As confirmed by ABS-CBN Film Restoration through a post on its official page on Facebook, Mariel Cruz (daughter of cinematographer Ely Cruz) and Monet Ongpin-Aquino and Denise Ongpin-Sanico (daughters of producer Simon Ongpin) were present during the CCP screening.

“The film was successfully restored in 2K through its 35mm print film source, which is being kept and preserved at the ABS-CBN Film Collection,” the post said.

“Each frame contained tremendous defects such as dust, dirt, continuous patches, single-frame scratches, flicker, stabilization, splice mark, bump, squeeze, gate hair, continuous dust, continuous line scratches, color stain, mold, mislight, vertical band, fungus, and color breathing,” it added.

The film had a total of 3,800 restoration hours done in Thailand by the Kantana Post Production company. The color grading and audio restoration were handled by Wildsound Studios.

“It’s a tough thing to do, but Kantana was able to clean it up as you can see it now,” said Julie Galino of ABS-CBN Film Archives at the CCP screening.

She mentioned Kantana was also the same company that handled post-production for “Hello, Love, Goodbye.” There were representatives from Kantana who came all the way from Bangkok to watch the premiere.

“Bad Bananas sa Puting Tabing” will be released soon on DVD and will be made available at the ABS-CBN Store at the ground floor of the ELJ Building in Quezon City.

It was announced there will be other screenings in bigger movie theaters.

“Makapal pa buhok ko noong napanood namin ito sa mga sinehan. Ngayon, luma na kami. Wala na akong buhok,” said Fabregas, smiling and scratching his head.

“We’re very happy, very lucky that after 36 years, we can still watch this classic in the big screen like it was 1983.”