Cool Cinema Trash

Cool Cinema Trash: The Lonely Lady (1983)

Dec 2, 2014 | Cool Cinema Trash, Movies

From the sensual world of Harold Robbins comes the story of a woman’s struggle for fame in Hollywood.

Movies about the troubled rise to superstardom are a staple in the diet of bad movie aficionados. Power. Fame. Money. Betrayal. We get all this and Pia Zadora too in The Lonely Lady (1983), a delectable trash classic based on the book by Harold Robbins.

What it’s all about: The Lonely Lady starts off with an auditory bang as the cheesy title song (a prerequisite for showbiz potboilers) is warbled over the opening credits. Pia Zadora arrives alone at the Hollywood awards presentation ceremony. The event is actually called “The Awards Presentation Ceremony”. The generic designation only calls attention to the fact that this is definitely not the Academy Awards.

Fade to another awards ceremony years earlier where pigtailed Valley girl Jerilee Randall (Zadora) receives a High School writing award. She tries to make a political statement with her acceptance speech, but is cut off by a shrewish faculty member.

Later that night at a swinging teenage party, Jerilee and a school chum move spastically to a distinctly 80’s rock song. Strangely, they’re not the worst offenders. Everyone at the party boogies as if they’re having a seizure. You would think that there was at least one good dancer at Valley High.

Teen bad boy Ray Liotta tells Pia that her award, “Looks like a penis.” After dunking her in the pool, innocent shenanigans suddenly turn violent when Liotta attacks her, rips open her dress, and rapes her with a garden hose, “I’m gonna give you something special!”

Jerilee’s mother (Bibi Besch) proves she won’t be winning the Mother of the Year anytime soon when she refuses to call the police. “These are Beverly Hills people,” she tells the doctor, “I can’t afford the lawyers to fight them.” Displaying her utter lack of maternal instinct, she explains that Jerilee “wouldn’t want the neighbors pointing at her and whispering about her behind her back any more than I do.”

Successful screenwriter Walter Thornton (Lloyd Bochner) visits Jerilee during her recuperation. They talk shop and Bochner begins to spend more and more time with jailbait Pia. During a romantic montage (the first of several) they share their first kiss.

“He’s too old for you!” Besch insists.

“I love Walter. I enjoy being with him, I admire him, I wanna go to bed with him.”

Besch finds this as distasteful as we do and hilariously cover her ears, “I am not listening to this! I am not listening to this!”

After a backyard wedding reception Walter beds his child bride, or at lest tries to. “I’m sorry Jeri, it’s been a very tiring day.”

In the meantime, Jerilee’s first book makes the bestseller list. To show the passing of time, we get this dubbed line, “It’s taken long enough, more than a year since I wrote it.” The two of them seem happy as they read the reviews of her “sensitive and perceptive stories”.

During an evening out, Walter glad-hands his fellow Hollywood types, including a rather desperate actress. “Who would want to be an actress?” Pia seriously asks. It’s pretty funny coming from someone who’s made her own dubious career choices.

“In this business you can’t afford self respect.” Walter answers.

Jerilee becomes Walter’s assistant. On the set of his latest movie she encounters catty make-up man Kenneth Nelson. “I hope you can spell, darling.”

“D-A-R-L-I-N-G.” is her snappy retort.

When the temperamental leading lady (her name is Adolph!) demands re-writes, Jerilee tries her hand at scriptwriting, but Walter can’t handle the competition. “Stick to the job you’re hired for.” When he sees that her changes for a difficult scene are good, he passes the ideas off as his own. Things quickly go downhill from there.

After a particularly bitter fight, Jerilee invites Walter to bed and he cruelly waves a garden hose at her, “Is this more your kick?!”

Jerilee moves out and gets her own place. When swishy director pal Guy Jackson takes her to a party, she meets actor George Ballantine (Jared Martin). Jerilee is understandably desperate for some real lovin’. Their affair gets of to a steamy start when she goes down on him in the shower. When she reveals that she’s pregnant, Ballantine proves what a jerk he is.

After a short stay in the hospital, Jerilee deadpans, “Mother, I’ve had an abortion.”

“I don’t know why you ever left Walter.” As callous and judgmental as her mother might seem, she is right. After all, Walter would’ve never been able to get Jerilee pregnant.

Next on Jerilee’s hit parade of reprehensible lovers is slick nightclub owner Vincent Dacosta (Joseph Cali) who makes vague promises about producing her screenplay before giving her a job as a hostess. She begins dating him. It all starts out innocent enough with horseback riding and ice cream cones, but soon it becomes apparent what kind of man he really is.

When Jerilee runs into Guy, she tries to explain that Dacosta, “knows a lot of people.”

“So does my garbage man.”

Dacosta doesn’t take kindly to having his name besmirched. After doing a line of coke, he possessively tells Jerilee, “If you write for anyone…you write for me.”

That’s the last straw. Pia puts her foot down and acts her little heart out as she declares, “If I write for anyone Vinnie, I WRITE FOR ME!”

Afraid that she may have blown her only chance, she makes it up to Vinnie with a night of decadent and gratuitous lovemaking. They do it in a bed, on a pool table, and in a hot tub. While in the throws of passion, Dacosta hilariously forces her to take drugs.

As if that weren’t bad enough, he pimps Jerilee to an Italian producer and an international starlet. In their hotel room, the actress is quite complementary as she undresses Jerilee. “Your eyes are most beautiful, your script is beautiful, everything is beautiful. I know it will be very good,” she coos as the producer watches.

When Pia returns to regale Dacosta with all the gory details, she finds him in his office with two naked broads. He tosses her script back and laughs in her face. The combination of lesbian sex and betrayal by a greasy Italian slime ball pushes Pia over the edge. She literally goes bonkers and it’s one of the most memorable freak-outs in cinema history.

First, Pia tries to scrub herself clean in the shower (with her clothes still on!) Then she trashes her apartment while soaking wet and emoting like nothing you’ve ever seen before. The scene culminates with an enraged Pia pounding on the keys of her typewriter as the faces of the men who’ve wronged her swirl in front of her. “Damn you! Damn you!” she shouts as the faces crumble away into an animated spinning vortex.

When the attending physician at the hospital tells Jerilee’s mom about her complete mental collapse, she shrugs it off, “She’s always been difficult.”

Walter isn’t much help either. Whenever he gets near, Jerilee goes into hysterical screaming fits. As she lies in a catatonic state, it’s old pal Guy who keeps watch at her bedside. “Where are you Jerilee, where have you gone?” he asks in what we assume is a rhetorical question. “Now come out and win Jerilee! I don’t wanna lose you. I love you.” This brings a tear to her eye, probably because the only man left in her life is a gay director with an unappealing moustache.

Pia battles her way back to sanity in a montage. When Guy brings her a portable typewriter she begins working on a new screenplay about her experiences in Hollywood, “This is me, it’s my story, it’s my child, it’s a part of me.” The script is for the very same movie that we’re watching! Hollywood is finally interested, but deals and compromises have to be made. Without Jerilee’s ex-lover George Ballantine as star, the project won’t get a greenlight.

At first Jerilee refuses, but an agent suggests she take the deal, “You’ve already had one abortion sweetheart, don’t make it two.”

“Same father.” She quips.

Jerilee agrees to meet with producer Tom Castel and realizes that she’ll have to go through more of the same when Castel’s bosomy wife beckons her into an outdoor Jacuzzi. “Won’t you come and join me Jerilee?” says the spider to the fly, “It’s wonderfully relaxing.”

The story comes full circle when we cut back to the “awards presentation ceremony”. During the rather low-rent proceedings, we discover that Jerilee’s script for The Hold Outs is nominated for best original screenplay. She wins and as she makes her way to the stage, the awards show orchestra plays an appropriately lush version of The Lonely Lady theme song.

At the podium, Jerilee makes the standard awards show “thank you’s”, but the moment is bittersweet. While looking into the faces of those who’ve screwed her over (literally and figuratively) she decides to tell it like it is, “I don’t suppose I’m the only one who’s had to fuck her way to the top.” The audience gasps, apparently shocked by her brutal honesty. This is supposedly the film’s scandalous denouement. But after the graphic scenes of rape, sex, drugs, and degradation, hearing the main character say “fuck” in front of a bunch of people isn’t terribly shocking.

A sadder but wiser Pia refuses her award and walks off the stage accompanied by jeers from the audience. As she makes her way out of the auditorium and across the plaza, she is alone, but her head is held high.

“Looooone-lyyyyy Laaaaa-daaaay, Oooooon-lllllly you can help yourself.”

In conclusion: Pia Zadora should’ve helped herself to some better career advice. After the failure of Butterfly (1982) and The Lonely Lady, Pia’s bid for stardom fizzled. Another notable blonde, Bo Derek, was suffering similar setbacks around the same time. Both were making disastrous choices under the guidance of their Svengali-like older husbands. But where Derek had the success of 10 (1979) to try and build a career on, Zadora’s only cinematic assets were her apple cheeks and perky breasts, which were the real stars of The Lonely Lady. While her attempt to become a sex goddess may have been a flop, by the end of the 80’s Zadora had a successful recording career, Vegas act, and new family to keep her busy. A truly happy Hollywood ending.

The box office failure of The Lonely Lady marked the end of an era. It was the last of Harold Robbins’ books to make it to the big screen… but what a way to go. It may not have been as grand and glossy as Cool Cinema Trash favorites The Carpetbaggers or Where Love Has Gone (both 1964) but it is by far the most graphic and audacious of the trashy Hollywood adaptations. Plus it has Pia, and that always counts for something.

Cool Cinema Trash: The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956)

Nov 25, 2014 | Cool Cinema Trash, Movies

According to the pop psychology of the 1950’s, there were good girls and there were bad girls. Good girls just didn’t look like Jane Russell. How could a woman, who wielded her curvaceous figure like a weapon, be anything but bad? The cross-your-heart bombshell spent most of her career playing seductive women out to get something and The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) is no exception.

What it’s all about: With a surly backward glance, bad girl Mamie Stover (Russell) bids farewell to San Francisco. Apparently, the City by the Bay wasn’t interested in what Mamie had to offer. She’s such a bad girl, that the police have personally escorted her to the tramp steamer that will take her far, far away. How far? To the South Pacific. That’s how bad she is.

“This lady knows her business,” the captain warns, “Except, she ain’t no lady.”

This intrigues dreamy square-jawed writer Jim Blair (Richard Egan). “You’re an interesting character study,” he tells her, though it’s obvious it’s more than her character he’s interested in.

While he pecks away on his portable typewriter, Mamie basks in his artistic interest, “Having a story written about you is almost as good as being a cover girl.”

After a romantic game of ring-toss, they share their first smoldering kiss. Though passions have been ignited, they continue to sleep in separate staterooms. Mamie may be bad, but she’s not that bad. One moonlit evening, Mamie shares her plans for the future. When they reach Honolulu, she’ll get a job at a place called The Bungalow, a prospect Jim isn’t exactly thrilled with. “Mamie Stover, the Anglo-Saxon bombshell among the hula-hulas. Getting the honky-tonk off your back might be a big job when it comes time to go home.”

When they reach port, Jim is met by his lady friend Anna lee (Joan Leslie) and his obedient manservant Aki. With her suitcase in hand, Mamie heads straight to her interview as a dancehall hostess. For those unfamiliar with this Hollywood euphemism, “dancehall hostess” is often the more delicate term used for prostitute.

Proprietress Bertha Parchman (a very blonde and very butch Agnes Moorehead) inspects Mamie and likes what she sees. “The Bungalow is a respectable place,” she tells Mamie, “We sell drinks and dances and social entertainment.” That evening, before opening the door of her establishment to the crowd of servicemen outside, Bertha lays down the ground rules for her new working girls. The most important rule being, “Sell, sell, sell. Smile it up. Remember, smiles mean money.”

After Mamie has had a chance to settle into her working life, Jimmy pays her a visit. After buying twenty dollars worth of tickets, he is asked to wait for Mamie in one of the champagne rooms. Mamie has dyed her hair a vibrant red. “Sells lots more tickets,” she insists, “They’ve been calling me flaming Mamie.” With ukulele mood music in the background, she whispers sweet nothings in his ear and they decide to rekindle their close friendship.

During an afternoon at the beach, Mamie sweet talks Jimmy into bank rolling some of her hard earned cash. They seal the deal with a kiss in front of the sparkling waters of a rear projection sea.

When good girl Anna lee visits Jimmy at his lavish hilltop home, she senses that he’d rather be spending his time with a certain bad girl. Mamie arrives a short time later to questions about a thank you note Jimmy received from a small town in Mississippi. Mamie, it seems, sent her father some cash along with the news that she’s now Mrs. James Blair. “I had to give my old man some explanation why I left San Francisco. I’ve been leavin’ too many cities lately.”

Mamie has managed to save a tidy sum and Jimmy encourages her to go back home and, “Make the biggest splash in the town’s history.” But there’s a war coming and Mamie has even bigger plans. The idea of Mamie making a fast buck off the war doesn’t appeal to Jim, “There are dirty names for people like that.”

“I’m used to dirty names,” she replies with the world-weariness of a dime store novel dame. “I was born with nothing and raised on lots more of the same.”

Sure enough, the day that will live in infamy ultimately arrives. The film is set in 1941, but with the exception of a few vintage cars, any other attempts at period detail seem to be an afterthought. Jim watches from the terrace of his hillside home as Pearl Harbor is bombed by the Japanese (courtesy of stock footage from other Fox movies). He fights his way through the crowds to get to Mamie.

While bombs explode and the other Bungalow girls run for cover, Mamie takes the time to plan for the future. “They’re all running scared,” she says of the panicking civilians outside her window, “But not me. I’m gonna buy real estate with every dollar I can raise!” Mamie immediately makes good on her promise and begins to buy all the cheap island property that she can get her hands on. Jimmy, being the all-American type that he is, immediately joins the Army.

While on a two-day pass, Jimmy and Mamie forgo their usual clandestine meeting for drinks at an exclusive Diamond Head hotel. After a spin around the dance floor (“It feels good not to have to collect tickets,” she tells him) they encounter The Bungalow’s strong-arm man. But an enforcer with coke bottle glasses is no match for a man in uniform. The brawl is over before it begins. Though pleased that Jimmy would defend her honor so publicly, Mamie must be realistic, “You can’t lick the whole island Jimmy. I got a number on my back and they all know it.”

“There aren’t going to be any more numbers on your back,” he says asking her to quit her duties at The Bungalow. “I love you Mamie. Not just in private, but anywhere and everywhere.” When he returns from his tour of duty they’ll tie the knot.

“Jimmy, I’m so crazy, dopey happy!”

Bertha can’t afford to lose her most popular hostess. When Mamie gives her notice, Bertha tries to exploit Mamie’s anxieties by telling a sob story about a man who once promised her the respectability of married life. “They all give you the same pitch, I…love…you.” But with Mamie it always comes down to cold hard cash. Bertha increases Mamie’s cut of the action and encourages her to keep working until Jimmy returns home. “Show me a guy who ever objected to a dowry.”

When a military police captain comes to The Bungalow to investigate complaints of overcharging, Mamie is given the responsibility of keeping him happy. She entertains him and the rest of the servicemen with an impromptu song. In a provocative gown designed by Travilla, Mamie sings “Keep Your Eyes On the Hands”, a song about the sensual subtleties of the hula.

In a stab at respectability, Mamie talks the captain into taking her to the country club for a few rounds of golf. Respectability, however, is the last thing on his mind. Despite lying to Jimmy about her employment status, she remains true to her man.

Somewhere else in the Pacific, Jimmy overhears some soldiers touting the virtues of Flaming Mamie. When he sees a pin-up of the girl he’s going to marry, the news that Mamie is still a “working girl” hits him like a bombshell, literally. When he is injured by enemy fire, he’s sent back to Honolulu to recuperate.

While Jimmy waits for his beloved in the champagne room where they began their affair, the rickety phonograph in the corner plays “If You Want to See Mamie Tonight”. Apparently, Mamie has become so infamous that a song’s been written about her!

When she first sees Jimmy, she’s overjoyed, but then realizes that she’s got some serious explaining to do. Jimmy, who is not in a forgiving mood, takes the high road. “Anything for a dollar Mamie? We don’t think the same about how life should be lived.” Yup, it’s the old “we’re from different worlds” brush off. Even Mamie can see that he must return to his house on the hill and the respectability of a girl like Anna Lee.

With the record playing in the background (“Any lad for Mamie, would go mad for Mamie. And give up all he ever had for Mamie”) she realizes that her ambitions have driven away the one man she might have found happiness with.

“If I told you that I made a fortune and given it all away, would you believe me?” a sadder but wiser Mamie asks the police officer who stands waiting for her on the dock in San Francisco. With her hair dyed back to her natural brunette, Mamie catches a ride in the squad car to the airport and her return flight home.

In conclusion: Most Twentieth Century Fox productions of the late 50’s and 60’s had three things in common. They were based on best-selling novels, featured lush location photography and were shot in the grandeur of cinemascope. These prerequisites gave a film a certain amount of prestige, and prestige was an essential component in the battle to pull audiences away from television and back into theatres. Though The Revolt of Mamie Stover meets all the requirements of a prestige picture (it has Hawaiian locations, gorgeous Cinemascope photography and was based on the book by William Bradford Huie) it thankfully never achieves its lofty goals. Like the hard-knocks heroine of the title, this movie tries to be something it’s not… respectable. Despite all the highbrow gloss, it’s still the deliciously trashy tale of a bad girl and her desire for love, money and respect.

Though currently unavailable on DVD, the Fox Movie Channel occasionally runs both the pan and scan and the widescreen versions of the film.

Cool Cinema Trash: Beyond the Forest (1949)

Nov 18, 2014 | Cool Cinema Trash, Movies

Nobody’s as good as Bette when she’s bad!

The above tagline is the actual promotional copy used to sell Beyond the Forest (1949), and when they say bad… they ain’t kidding. Bette Davis gives one of the most wonderfully terrible and outrageous performances of her career, making Beyond the Forest a must-see for any aficionado of cool cinema trash.

What it’s all about: The movie begins with this erudite prologue:

This is the story of evil. Evil is headstrong—is puffed up. For our souls sake it is salutary for us to view it in all its ugly nakedness once in a while. Thus we may know how those who deliver themselves over to it end up like the scorpion, in a mad frenzy, stinging themselves to eternal death.

Next, a narrator takes us on a walking tour of Loyalton, Wisconsin where the quaint streets are completely deserted. It seems that every man, woman and child in this sleepy mill town are at a coroner’s inquest. In the packed courtroom, Bette Davis leaps into camera frame, “Why should I kill him? It was an accident!” she shrieks as she fiddles with her black Morticia Addams wig. As if all this weren’t enough, the picture starts to disolve and the story heads into flashback.

So far we’ve had a cautionary prologue, expository voice-over narration and a flash back … all within the first five minutes!

After a day spent fishing with her physician husband, scheming Rosa Moline (Davis) sets an elaborate plan into action. First, she gets rid of her hubby (Joseph Cotton) with news that one of his patients has gone into labor. With a phony twisted ankle as her excuse not to go back to town, she stays behind and shoots defenseless woodland creatures. “They irritate me,” she tells Moose (Minor Watson) a grizzled old-timer and recovering alcoholic. Once he’s passed out from the drink Rosa has thoughtfully provided, she hightails it to nearby Latimer Lodge for a rendezvous with wealthy Chicago industrialist Neil Latimer (David Brian). While reclining on a bovine throw pillow in front of a romantic fire, Rosa demands to know why he hasn’t written her.

“Anything I had to say to you,” he tells her, “I wouldn’t put on paper.”

“Say it now,” she commands.

“I don’t need words.”

As the night wears on, Louis Moline delivers a baby boy. But the child’s mother is gravely ill and he must try and find the necessary medicine.

In the game room of the lodge, Neil and Rosa have a frank discussion about their relationship. “What do you want?”

“You,” she deadpans. “You could get me out. I’m the kind of woman you need. I want you to marry me.” When Neil heartily laughs at her assertiveness, she slaps the smile right off his face. Apparently, she is the kind of woman he needs and proves it with a hungry kiss.

When Louis finally returns to the modest home that he shares with his wife, Davis delivers one of the most famous lines of her career, “What a dump.” Davis barely mutters the throwaway line that would later gain notoriety after being featured in the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?

The next day, Rosa sashays through town on her way to the post office. Her PO box only holds junk mail. There are no letters from her lover. A pair of housewives coolly assess Rosa as she dejectedly heads back home. “Even when we were in high school,” one of them whispers, “Rosa was always different from everybody else. It’s hard on Rosa being tied to a town like this.”

To which the other woman can only reply, “It’s hard on the town.”

Once Rosa returns to her “dump”, she takes out her frustrations on her half-breed maid. “Mrs. Moline, let’s not start calling each other names,” her sassy servant (Dona Drake) warns, “I’ve got some fancy one’s saved up just aching to be used.”

From the front porch of her home, Rosa seethes under the oppressive evening glow of the town mill, “If I don’t get out of here I’ll die,” she vows, the venom of her hatred practically oozing from her every pore, “If I don’t get out of here I hope I die…and burn.”

Rosa’s ennui is briefly interrupted by the arrival of Moose’s estranged daughter, Carol (Ruth Roman). When no one is looking, Rosa tries on Carol’s fur coat. The coat represents all the fine, luxurious things that Rosa has been denied. As she strokes the fur and puffs on a cigarette, Rosa hatches another scheme. With a little money, she could really live it up in Chicago.

When the townsfolk start to give Doc Moline the cold shoulder, it doesn’t take him long to figure out that Rosa has gone through his business ledgers, called all his patients and forced them to pay their past-due doctor’s bills. “Here’s the money you went begging for,” he tells her, tossing the money at her feet, “If you take it, don’t come back.”

Rosa heads to the windy city without a backwards glance. Rosa spends most of her first afternoon waiting in Latimer’s office. He calls later that evening and they go for a drive together. Neil doesn’t pull any punches and tells her that he plans to marry a society girl.

Understandably, Rosa is furious. “I came here, dragged myself on my hands and knees with no pride. Me, Rosa Moline! And you don’t want me, I’m not good enough!” she shouts, leaping from the car, “You showed me my place alright!”

In a bit of dialog that was used in the trailer, but cut from the print used for the MGM/UA video, Rosa concludes her tirade against Neil with the line that she was “Just good enough for a romp in the woods!”

Rosa gives herself a pep talk as she walks the gritty Chicago streets, “I’m not just any woman…I’m Rosa Moline.” Rejected, rain soaked and laughed at by vagrants, Rosa begrudgingly admits defeat and returns to Loyalton where Louis takes her back without question. Later, Rosa tells her husband that she’s going to have a child.

At a grand birthday party Carol has thrown in Moose’s honor, Rosa square dances with the other townsfolk before slipping away for a clandestine meeting with Neil who has flown in especially for the party.

Neil has called off his engagement and tells Rosa that she’s what he really needs, “I’ll doll you up Rosa, hang diamonds on you like a Christmas tree and then I’m gonna trot you out and say ‘Look, this is the kind of woman I want, a woman with guts’ and you can wipe your feet on all of them.”

Happiness seems to be within Rosa’s grasp. But Moose brings things to a halt the next morning. While everyone prepares for a hunting party, he tells her, “I’m on to you and Latimer. You’re something for the birds Rosa.”

“And you’re something to make the corn grow tall.” Rosa is too close to achieving her dreams to let an old man stand in her way. With her keen marksman’s eye, she makes sure that Moose won’t be telling anybody anything.

At the inquest, Rosa pleads that the shooting was accidental. The judge believes her. After the trial and Moose’s funeral, Neil postpones his plans with Rosa. If they ran away together it would look too suspicious. He returns to Chicago, leaving Rosa to stew in her hatred and ambitions. It isn’t long before she reaches the boiling point.

“After I’ve told you a few things,” she shouts at her husband, “you may not want me or my baby.” She confesses to the affair and to killing Moose. “I’ve been hunting all my life, did you ever know me to miss?”

One afternoon, Rosa disguises herself in her maid’s ratty street clothes and takes a bus to the next town. Louis follows his wife and picks her up from a nondescript office. We’re shown the business plaque outside the attorney’s office and are led to believe that Rosa is seeking a divorce. As originally scripted, Rosa was waiting to see a doctor, in hopes of getting rid of the baby.

The scene that follows was also subject to censorship. In certain parts of the country it was cut from the film. As Louis drives his wife home, Rosa leaps from the car and down a steep embankment in a reckless attempt to induce a miscarriage. Whether or not she lost the baby is never revealed. We assume that she did when we’re shown Rosa recuperating in bed at home.

In a single afternoon, things go from bad to worse. A victim of blood poisoning, Rosa becomes feverish and incoherent, rambling on and on to her husband about the things she never had. “You really hate me don’t you?” she slurs, “You finally got the guts to hate me… well congratulations!”

Louis must drive to the next town to get her more medicine. While he’s away, Rosa gets dressed and prepares to leave. “The choo-choo’s gonna carry me away.” Sweaty, disheveled and stumbling around as if she’s drunk, Rosa enlists her maid’s help in putting on her cha-cha heels.

“Chicago, Chicago, that toddling town…” she mumbles as she paints on her make-up and makes her way through town to the train. Onward she trudges, the trains sharp whistle a seductive siren’s song to her feverish brain. Finally, mere steps from the depot, she collapses as the train leaves for Chicago without her.

Louis arrives at the station to find Rosa face down in the dirt where, like the scorpion, she has stung herself to eternal death…or something like that.

In conclusion: Beyond the Forest was an unequivocal flop when it was released. Bette Davis received the worst reviews of her career, something even Davis herself couldn’t argue with. In the 1974 biography Mother Goddam, Davis says that among the film’s many problems was that, “It was terrible because I was too old for the part.”

Indeed, casting a 40-year-old actress as the most dissatisfied but desirable woman in town was just one on the countless decisions that doomed Beyond the Forest from the moment shooting began. It was the cumulative power of those behind-the-scenes blunders that resulted in a bad movie perfect storm.

Another problem was the casting of amiable Joseph Cotton, “Why should any wife want to get away from him?” Davis questioned. Why indeed? The entire premise of the film depended on the fact that Davis, who looked positively frumpy in her Edith Head costumes, was supposed to be the hottest thing around and desperate to escape to the big city. If a grown woman such as Rosa hated living with a nice small-town doctor, why didn’t she just leave? Upon close examination, nearly all the motivations and plot twists fall apart…they simply don’t make any sense.

Perhaps this is why Davis, in an attempt to overshadow the story’s shortcomings, cranks her performance up to eleven, achieving a level of self-parody that is truly breathtaking. Director King Vidor certainly wasn’t going to ask her to tone it down. To Vidor, subtlety was anathema. Before undertaking this film, he’d proven that no dramatic situation was too over the top with the classics Duel in the Sun (1946) and The Fountainhead (1949).

Beyond the Forest is also the film that ended Davis’ long association with Warner Brothers. Both Jack Warner and Davis were dissatisfied with the movie and, as the film neared completion, Davis threatened to walk off the picture if Warner didn’t release her from her contract. Jack Warner was fed up with Davis’ constant demands and Davis was tired of her continual struggle for quality projects. After eighteen years they parted ways.

Bette Davis had a long career filled with roles that not only proved her range as an actress, but also proved that she was one of the very best in her profession. But every actor, no matter how good, has a few flops on their resume. Film scholars might do well to compare the achievements of Now Voyager (1942) or Jezebel (1938) with films like Beyond the Forest simply because the disparity is so intriguing.

Beyond the Forest is, quite simply, a towering achievement in camp/cult cinema and is not to be missed.

Cool Cinema Trash: Fuego (1969)

Nov 11, 2014 | Cool Cinema Trash, Movies

She burns. She consumes. She’s a woman on fire. She’s Fuego.

Though mostly unknown to audiences in the U.S., Isabel Sarli is a bona-fide sex goddess in Latin America. Director Armando Bo discovered the beautifuly buxom former Miss Argentina and quickly put Sarli to work in his colorfully melodramatic sexploitation films. Bo directed his favorite leading lady in such films as Carne (1968) and Put Up or Shut Up (1958).

What it’s all about: Fuego (1969) begins with the sexually insatiable Laura (Sarli) trying to cool her burning desires with a refreshing dip in a picturesque lake. Laura’s devoted lesbian housekeeper Andrea (Alba Mugica) helps her dry her remarkably feminine curves. Laura doesn’t seem to mind the impromptu massage from her amorous maid, but when a stud on a stallion rides up and witnesses their little tete a tete, Laura is suddenly overcome with modesty and puts on a robe.

Later at home, Laura tells her Andrea that, “At times, I love you so much, at others… I despise you!” The characters in Fuego are constantly making bold and melodramatic statements. It’s as if every thought they express were followed by several exclamation points, and if you happen to be watching the English subtitled version, they often are!

Laura admires her bountiful assets in a full-length mirror while dressing for a party. The passion Andrea feels for her employer is almost as strong as Laura’s lust for men. “You’re insatiable,” Andrea chastises, “Your longings are endless. You’re a mix of angel and demon.”

At the party, two women watch as Laura romances her current paramour. “In the end,” one of them quips, “She’ll really fall in love.”

“She still has ten to go at least. She’s shameless.”

True to form, as soon as the gent leaves, Laura sets her sights on the man who watched her by the lake that afternoon. Carlos (director Armando Bo) cannot resist her as she pouts and preens in her Liz Taylor wig and gargantuan false eyelashes. It takes only a few moments for him to become bewitched by this south of the border siren.

They leave the party together. In the garden outside, Carlos proclaims his love, “I think I’ve lived long enough to realize that you are the woman I’ve always been waiting for.” He kisses her. They proceed to make love in front of a chicken coop while the wacky theme song throbs away on the soundtrack. The love theme from Fuego (a sultry rumba played on a Wurlitzer) is deliriously kitschy and, aside from Sarli, the most memorable thing about the film.

While horseback riding in the mountains, Laura declares that, despite their snowy surroundings, “I feel my blood boiling.”

“You’re the most voluptuous of all women,” Carlos tells her. He proposes on the spot, but Laura honestly doesn’t know if she can be faithful. He promises to always stand by her and help defend her from herself.

“I don’t know if I’m fickle or evil,” she ponders, “I want to be good.”

To try and cool her seemingly insatiable longings, she rolls around in a snow bank. But the question remains, why should she be good when she’s so great at being bad? Even after a succession of other men, Carlos still wants to marry her. She finally relents.

Andrea is upset by the news, afraid that the occasional romps she shares with her mistress will end. “You’ll drive him crazy, he’ll end up killing you. You will not get married!” Andrea is brought to hysterical tears and passion quickly turns to violence as a catfight ensues.

“I love him,” Laura insists, “He’s a man, Andrea. He’s a man.”

Laura says her “I do’s” in a white wedding gown, and her nuptials are consummated in front of a crackling fire. Though Sarli and Bo were famous lovers off screen, their chemistry on screen is lukewarm at best. They go through all the motions, but their love scenes are remarkably unsexy thanks in no small part to Bo’s fumbling romantic moves. “Fuego!” a Spanish troubadour bleats on the soundtrack as the newlyweds later canoodle on the rocky shore of the lake where they first saw one another.

One day, after Carlos has left for work, Laura pleasures herself while still in bed. But caressing her own bountiful curves isn’t enough. She puts on gloves, go-go boots, a fur coat and heads into town where she proceeds to flash every man she comes across. Though most of the men think she’s muy loco, one finally submits and they drive up into the hills where Laura does a strip tease against a tree. She is a panting, writhing, desperate ball of passion aflame!

Once the stranger has had his way with her, he leaves her stranded. Laura sheds tears of shame as she begins her long walk home. When Carlos finds the house empty, he goes in search of his wife. When he finds her, Laura asks, “Do you forgive me my love?”

He does.

While Carlos spends his days working as an engineer, Laura amuses herself with various men. She sometimes even bids her devoted and maid to satisfy her urges… not that Andrea minds. One day, after an afternoon spent in the company of another man, Carlos demands to know where Laura has been. “I walked around aimlessly and thought about you,” she lies. When he presses her for the truth, she confesses, “I thought of killing myself. With you I learned to love. I’m afraid of losing you, I’d like for you to kill me. I feel a powerful need to die.” Laura’s inability to remain faithful weighs heavy on her conscious. “Life is all I have. I offer it to you, take it from me!” she pleads. Despite her unholy passions, he still loves her.

Laura still cannot get enough. One afternoon, Carlos returns home to find his wife in someone else’s arms. “I only came to fix the refrigerator!” the man insists. Once he has chased the stranger from his marriage bed, Carlos threatens his nymphomaniacal wife with a gun.

“I’m going to kill you! You’re a whore!” he cries in the best tradition of soap opera theatrics.

“Kill me… please!” she begs. Sarli really acts up a storm, emoting as if her life truly depended on it. “I love you, but I feel an internal fire devouring me, a sexual fury that kills me. I need men!”

Carlos finally seeks outside help. “Your wife is gravely ill,” a doctor tells him. The physician proceeds to give an amusingly earnest textbook lecture on the “pathological exaggeration of the libido”, the heartbreak that is nymphomania.

Laura agrees to a full examination. Even the purely professional touch of a gynecologist sets her passions ablaze. In a moment that must be seen to be believed, Laura pants and writhes while on the exam table. “Go on doctor,” she moans, “Keep doing that.”

Carlos fires Andrea. How can poor Laura ever expect to get better with a salivating sister of Sappho willing to cater to her every sexual whim? “You have taken advantage of a poor sick woman to satisfy your low instincts.” Andrea insists that her love for her mistress is pure, but leaves anyway, knowing that it’s in Laura’s best interest.

Carlos and Laura fly to the U.S. in search for a cure. Surely they can find an expert on sexual deviancy in New York City. A brief consultation with a physician offers little hope, “With God’s help, everything will be alright.” Gee, thanks doc.

Left to her own devices, Laura hooks up with a greaser in Times Square. Later, on the rooftop of her hotel, Laura contemplates ending it all. If she cannot remain faithful to the one man that she truly loves, then life just isn’t worth living. With the New York skyline beckoning her to jump, a marching band inexplicably blares on the soundtrack. Carlos keeps her from taking the final leap, but she firmly believes that her, “Illness can only be cured by disappearing forever.”

The film spirals towards it’s loony climax when the troubled couple return home and Laura continues with her slatternly ways. “Kill me! I beg you. I can’t live like this.”

“Yes Laura,” Carlos hilariously deadpans, “It’ll be for the best. For you and for me.” On a mountaintop, he holds a gun to her head, but cannot pull the trigger. “Don’t you see that I still love you? Cheat on me with everyone. I couldn’t live without you.”

After praying for guidance, Laura heads to a rocky hillside. In a flowing, diaphanous white gown, she holds her arms aloft and walks over the edge of a cliff.

While laying flowers at his wife’s grave, Carlos encounters a vision. In broad daylight, Laura’s ghostly apparition professes her undying love. “I’ll always be at your side, with my soul, my love.”

Unable to bear life without his beloved Laura, Carlos shoots himself, his lifeless body splayed over the grave of his wife. Their souls reunite and they walk away together hand in hand… lovers for all eternity.

In conclusion: Isabel Sarli and Armando Bo made an astonishing twenty-seven movies together. Many of these films featured variations on the sexual themes explored in Fuego. Bo favored stories about a sexy “good girl” who stirs the passions of the men around her or a sexy “bad girl” whose intense desires (nymphomania) always end in heartbreak. Bo is often referred to as the Argentinean Russ Meyer. Both Bo and Meyer were making similarly sexy and outrageous films around the same time, but where Meyer had a stable of curvaceous beauties to cast in his films, Isabel Sarli was Bo’s sole inspiration.

The colorfully sexy shenanigans of Sarli have been made available on DVD thanks to Something Weird Video. The film’s 1960’s color palate remains particularly vibrant, especially for a film of this rarity. The mono sound is also in good condition. Sadly, scratches and dirt on the print are evident throughout, though one imagines that it would be difficult to find a better or more complete version (Fuego was cut by censors in several countries) of this obscure classic. A second Sarli feature, The Female (aka Seventy Times Seven), is also included as part of the “sizzling Latin double feature”. The Female is a B&W arthouse western and one of the few films Sarli made without Bo. The disc includes several trailers for Fuego as well as other South American sexploitation titles. There are two short subjects as well, each featuring a pretty gal taking it off in a burlesque-style striptease.

Cool Cinema Trash: Of Love and Desire (1963)

Nov 6, 2014 | Cool Cinema Trash, Movies

If you are an adult in every sense of the word, you will probably understand about Katherine and Paul – and why there were so many men in her life!

Part South of the border travelogue and part overheated melodrama, Of Love and Desire (1963) is a sherbet colored confection that will leave any bad movie aficionado salivating like a kid in a candy store.

What it’s all about: Shortly after arriving in sunny Acapulco, engineer Steve Corey (played by swarthy Steve Cochran) is whisked away to the home of wealthy mining magnate Paul Beckmann (Curt Jurgens). Steve feels a bit out of his element, for when he arrives, a swanky cocktail party is in full swing. A mariachi band (that doesn’t play mariachi music) winds through the crowds of finely attired guests. “I’m not exactly dressed for a party,” Steve apologizes to Paul’s sister Katherine (Merle Oberon).

“I’ll never understand why you men are never happy unless you’re all dressed alike,” she quips. In her tailored gown and upswept hairdo, Oberon looks like a matronly Holly Golightly.

Steve and Katherine flirt over conversation, drinks and dancing. Paul pointedly reminds his sister to behave herself. As the party begins to wind down, a contractor working on the same project as Steve tells him that Katherine may be just the girl Steve needs to forget about a recent broken engagement. “All you have to do is touch that dame and she goes off like a firecracker.”

As they stroll across the grounds of her brother’s home, Katherine comments on the beautiful night, despite the fact that the scene was obviously shot during the day. She asks Steve to accompany her to her nearby hacienda. While on their walk, Katherine reveals that Paul is her half-brother, a plot point that will prove important later on.

An unassuming street side door leads to Katherine’s secret garden. A heavenly choir “oohs” and “ahhs” as the camera pans across her verdant courtyard. After chatting about long-ago childhood games, Katherine offers Steve a nightcap. The proximity of Steve’s potent brand of masculinity sets her on edge and she accidentally drops his drink.

Up until this point, Of Love and Desire has been a colorful, if not unremarkable, melodrama. It’s when Katherine finally reveals her tortured desire for male companionship that the film kicks into high camp overdrive. A simple kiss goodnight unleashes Katherine’s inner wildcat. She pants and clutches at Steve, clawing at his shirt, leaving him momentarily stunned by her sudden passion.

“Did I give in too fast for you? Didn’t I play the game right? Just what do you need to make you feel like I’m a conquest? I should have pretended longer, but just how much longer… one hour… two?” she cries.

One second she’s literally begging for it, the next she’s shedding overwrought tears of shame. Katherine’s obvious schizophrenic sex addiction would send any sane man running for the hills, so what does Steve do? He takes her in his arms, lowers her down onto the couch and kisses her.

Church bells ring while the sun also rises. Steve awakens in Katherine’s bed, but finds her outside enjoying a morning swim. “I wish I were as young as you make me feel,” she coos. It has to be said that for a woman of fifty-two, Oberon cuts a rather fine figure in her two-piece swimming ensemble.

She asks him to join her in the azure waters of her garden pool. Steve goes to change in the poolside bungalow and finds several pairs of men’s swim trunks, all of which have been presumably left behind by Katherine’s previous lovers.

Paul interrupts their swim. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is going on when Steve’s bags are brought over by a valet. “He spent the night,” she heatedly confesses to Paul, “Katherine Beckmann with a total stranger!”

Later, after Steve has inspected the mining project, Katherine brings him a picnic lunch. “I’ve known you less than a day and I’ve made a fool of myself twice… am I doing it again?” She then makes an awkward genie comment, “Rub me right and make a wish.” Once again, Katherine’s mild stalking tendencies would send most men running. Steve finds it quaint.

Together they fly away on a Mexican holiday. They make love in the shadows of an Aztec pyramid and splash along the picturesque coast. One afternoon, while playfully tumbling around on the bed, the inevitable happens. She calls Steve by the wrong name. Oops. Talk about a mood breaker.

At an open air Mercado, she tells Steve, “I want to be different for you, young and exciting, so that you’ll never get tired of me.” Impulsively she has a local barber cut off her long tresses. “Now you can run your fingers through my hair anytime you want.” This isn’t necessarily true since her shorter, more sensible cut is just as severely styled and lacquered as her previous up ‘do.

Back from vacation, Steve admits that he loves her despite her past, “I fell in love with you anyway.” He asks her to marry him in a line obviously added in post-production. It’s a rather silly attempt to add some respectability to their whirlwind affair. It’s especially ridiculous since it has been made abundantly clear that there is nothing respectable about Katherine’s voracious appetite for the opposite sex. They kiss as the sun sets, church bells chime and the swallows return to Capistrano.

When Katherine tells Paul of her happiness, her brother reacts with a startling severity, “I’ve had to tolerate your sorted little affairs, I will not put up with this any longer. You are not to see this man again, I forbid it.” He quickly apologizes for his harsh words and they share a moment remembering times past. Though Paul’s fervent recollections about Katherine’s youthful beauty seem a bit odd.

Paul knows the only way to get his sister to forget one man, is to present her with another. While yachting with friends, Katherine is shocked to find that former paramour Gus Cole (John Agar) has been invited along. After a few drinks, the cad makes his move, “What’s the difference Katherine? It’s just another pair of pants. I wanna press the button and watch you melt.” She tries to resist, but the rape turns to romance as she tearfully submits to her own prurient desires.

Come morning, she shamefully realizes the betrayal she has committed against the man she loves and slits her wrists. Steve comes aboard to join the party and finds Katherine on the floor of her cabin.

Once Katherine is safe and convalescing, Paul explains that his sister’s neuroses are due in part to a love she lost long ago, “She goes from one to the other searching for a lost passion.”

As Steve prepares to leave, Katherine comes to say good-bye, “No excuse. If I had one, I’d give it to you as a going away present.” She then proceeds to tell the sad tale of her first love. She was saving herself for her wedding day. “I was a virgin. To me it meant so much. We wanted to be married, but Paul wouldn’t hear of it.”

All of her pain, guilt and regret are wrapped up into a tidy psychological package that serves to explain her trampy behavior. This girl clearly has some issues. Once again, Steve is presented with the option of a graceful exit, but does he take it?

“Katherine, I think you’ve served your time in hell. You come with me.”

“I’m an awful risk,” she warns, before hurrying back to her hacienda to pack. “I’m going away with Mr. Corey,” she joyfully tells her housekeeper. But when she sees the bandages on her wrists, an overwrought musical cue tells us that she’s changed her mind. “How could I have been such a fool?”

She has to get away from it all. As she packs, she angrily confronts her controlling brother, “You showed me what I am. I never want to see you again Paul!”

It’s now that Paul chooses to lay all his cards on the table. “Always torturing me with your affairs, throwing them in my face. Alone, always alone, because I can’t have what I really want.” This revelation could’ve been shocking and dramatic, if it weren’t for the lighting instrument that bobs in and out of frame.

After her brother’s incestuous declaration of love, Katherine flees the house in disgust. In a blind panic she runs, but everywhere she turns there are men. Men, MEN, MEN!

Through the streets and into a hotel lobby she runs until she becomes trapped in a revolving door. “Let me free!” she cries as the sequence builds to its loopy climax. Back out on the street she has nowhere to turn. There are men, men everywhere! Steve, who was on his way to pick her up, spots her and rescues her from her own hysterical theatrics. “I love you so much. Take me away from here.”

Even after this latest demonstration of Katherine’s instability, Steve still wants her. Is he a saint or simply a glutton for punishment?

As they take one last stroll through the garden, they notice that a portrait in Katherine’s likeness is missing from the living room mantle. “Poor Paul,” Katherine muses as she walks away with the man of her dreams. Forget about psychoanalysis and twelve step programs, true love and a respectable marriage are all this middle-aged neurotic sex-addict needs.

In conclusion: Of Love and Desire came towards the end of Merle Oberon’s long career. Since it isn’t every day that any actress of her years gets to play a sex kitten, Oberon tackles the role of Katherine with gusto. Women of a certain age being presented as still desirable was a radical concept for 1963. With the sexual revolution and the women’s movement just around the corner, it would have been interesting to see a story about a mature modern woman who fully embraces her own sexuality.

Instead, Of Love and Desire is an old-fashioned soap opera with a morality firmly entrenched in the 1950’s. Sex before marriage is bad. End of story. The resulting guilt and shame this causes for the film’s herione is what makes Of Love and Desire such a melodramatic treat for fans of cool cinema trash.

Of Love and Desire occasionally runs on cable TV. Sadly, it is not currently available on DVD.

Cool Cinema Trash: Pieces (1982)

Oct 29, 2014 | Cool Cinema Trash, Movies

You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre!

There’s a murderous psychopath loose on campus and it’s up to real life husband and wife Christopher George and Lynda Day George to solve the crime. Something tells me that there’s going to be a lot of dead co-eds before all is said and done.

What it’s all about: Pieces (1982) opens with a prologue set 1942 Boston, though it’s unlike any Boston you’ve ever seen before. The majority of the film was shot in Madrid. A young mother walks in on her son putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She’s disgusted to find that the completed puzzle is of a naked woman. She ransacks his room looking for filth, but doesn’t get very far. Sonny boy hacks her to death with an axe. Though there’s lots of blood and gore, the axe never hits the actress, it just kind of bounces off her head.

Forty years later, Jr. is all grown up and obviously a little off kilter. He lovingly obsesses over mementos of that violent day, once again piecing together the blood stained picture puzzle.

A perky co-ed on a skateboard crashes through an over-sized mirror. Who is this girl and what has her mishap got to with the story? Who knows. She’s never referred to again. That’s the kind of movie were dealing with.

A young woman stretches out on the campus lawn trying to study when a mysterious groundskeeper starts up his chainsaw. She continues her reading, but soon looses her head at the hands of the maniac.

“Have you heard the latest?” one student asks, passing a joint to his friend, “They’ve just installed a waterbed in the training room.” This seemingly random tidbit is the only explanation we get for a major set-piece later on in the movie.

Detectives Bracken (Christopher George) and Holden (Frank Brana) meet with the Dean of the university (Edmund Purdom) to discuss the case of the headless co-ed. The Dean is all business and pawns the detectives off on anatomy professor Brown (Jack Taylor). Prof. Brown seems quite interested in the detectives’ theories, “You mean it might be one of the boys?”

“Who knows at this stage,” Holden quips, “We’re just out buying clothes without labels and trying them on for size.” Hmmm. Equating a murder investigation with shopping… it’s certainly an interesting analogy.

The killer, who skulks through the library in classic first person slasher-movie P.O.V., sees a pretty blonde pass a note to Kendall (Ian Sera), big man on campus. They plan to meet later that night at the pool. The killer later watches from the shadows as she slowly undresses then dives in for a quick swim. Using a pool net, he reels her in, fires up his chainsaw and harvests the necessary pieces he needs for his demented project.

Kendall discovers the body and the police arrive to find brutish campus handyman Willard (Paul L. Smith). After a minor scuffle, Willard is taken into custody. Bracken calls prof. Brown to the crime scene and asks for his educated opinion. “Well, I’m not a pathologist,” he insists while getting his fingerprints all over the murder weapon, “but even a layman could see it was done with this. I’d say it’s elementary.”

The Dean gets his knickers in a twist when he hears the detectives’ plan. “You want to place two of your policewomen on my staff to spy on everybody? That’s asking a lot.”

“There have been two murders now. That maniac is gonna kill again. This may be the only way we have of catching him.”

Speaking of…the killer watches a late night dance class, following one girl who leaves the studio to find the john. After a seemingly endless traipse down stairwells and through corridors, she runs into a friend. She’s safe for the time being.

After nearly thirty minutes of screen time, the real star of the picture finally appears. “Is this job dangerous?” Mary Riggs (Lynda Day George) asks. When Bracken tells her yes, she just about jumps for joy, “Good, I’ll do it. I’m bored to tears with this place.” Desk duty is no place for a former tennis pro turned police detective. Mary will go undercover as the university tennis coach. Since the dept. seems to be short on undercover cops, Kendall the campus Casanova will help her with the case.

Mary’s first assignment is an exhibition match with a female student. In the DVD extras we learn that the actresses had ever picked up a racquet before in their lives, a fact that is painfully obvious when watching the scene. The Dean congratulates Mary on a great game and hopes that, “This whole wretched business will be resolved with a minimum of fuss.” Sylvia Costa (Isabel Luque), a local reporter, begins asking questions. “Nothing has been happening I assure you. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Way to play it cool Dean. That kind of emphatic denial isn’t suspicious at all.

Meanwhile, the killer continues to play with his puzzle. To help keep the killers identity a secret, the actor wears gloves throughout the movie. Awkward, oversized gloves. In a shot that goes on and on and on, the killer fumbles with the jigsaw pieces, continually trying to jam them into place.

He makes a return visit to the dance studio where a leggy beauty rehearses all alone. She finishes up and goes to the elevator where she is surprised to find someone she knows. Her companion turns out to be the killer. He steps into the elevator and whips out his chainsaw. Her screams are heard across campus and Kendall rushes to her aide. All he finds is a bloody corpse. Bracken arrives on the scene to find the entire cast lined up as if they were in an Agatha Christie whodunit.

There are more shrieks in the night, only this time the screams come from a girl on the receiving end of Kendall’s considerable sexual prowess. He gives the audience a bit of full frontal when he goes to his bedroom window and spots Mary down below, snooping around.

The killer, his chainsaw at the ready, watches Mary. A man in a tracksuit jogs by. Suddenly she is attacked by a ninja. Yes… a ninja. She defends herself by kicking him where it counts. Kendall rides up on his dirt bike, “Hey, it’s my kung fu professor.” The Bruce Lee wannabe trots off, blaming the attack on bad chop suey.

Reporter Sylvia Costa explores the dark, deserted campus. She finds her way into the room with the aforementioned waterbed where the killer traps her. He stabs her repeatedly, water and blood gushing artistically in slow-motion geysers.

The next day, a female student finishes her tennis workout and hits the showers. The killer comes after her in the locker room, chainsaw buzzing. She tries to flee but her only route of escape has been blocked. She hides in a bathroom stall, so terrified that she wets her pants. Mary and Kendall arrive at the tennis courts but are unable to hear the girl’s screams because someone is blasting a marching band tune over the school’s P.A. system. The incongruous choice of music plays throughout the scene of gore and mayhem.

The killer slices trough the stall door and makes quick work of dicing up the tennis player. Mary and Kendall find Willard nearby acting suspicious, but then again, when is he not acting suspicious? It’s his sole reason for being in the movie. After the annoying music is finally turned off, they find the bloody remains of the recent locker room massacre.

Lynda Day George’s performance in this scene is pure bad movie nirvana. Pieces is worth watching for this single moment alone. “While we were out here fumbling with that music,” she emotes, “That lousy bastard was in there killing her. Bastard! BASTARD… BASTARD!!!”

The continuous campus violence sets everyone on edge. Det. Holden has been diligently sifting through files for clues, but Bracken needs answers now. “We don’t have anymore time. Take some uppers or something. Get me a lead. Anything!” Kendall, everyone’s favorite Jr. detective is assigned to help Holden.

That night, Mary pays the Dean a visit. He is unusually solicitous. The reason behind his gracious demeanor is quickly revealed. While mixing up some Sanka, in what may be the ugliest kitchen ever captured on film, the Dean drugs Mary’s coffee.

Kendall finds a clue. Holden checks the facts. After a single thirty second phone call, the case is solved. “The Dean is the one. Apparently his mother was chopped up when he was a kid. It must have affected his mind.”

In the sitting room of the Dean’s apartment, Mary begins to feel the strange effects of the drug. The detectives and Kendall arrive on the scene to find Mary in a near catatonic state. Unable to speak, she can’t tell them that the Dean is hiding behind the drapes. He pounces on an unsuspecting Kendall. They struggle. Just when the Dean is about to get the upper hand, Bracken shoots him dead.

The jigsaw puzzle is found and the police have their man. Case solved. After a job well done, Det. Holden casually leans against a bookshelf. Like a wall in a haunted house, the bookcase pivots open to reveal the Dean’s pieced together Frankenstein bride. The lifeless corpse topples onto a traumatized Kendall.

In a movie jam-packed with WTF moments, there’s still one last shock that tops them all. As the police close up the crime scene, Kendall stops to pick up his jacket. Suddenly, the hand of the corpse bride reaches up, grabs Kendall by the crotch and rips his privates off.

Seriously… WTF!?!

In conclusion: Fascinated by cinema at a young age, Juan Piquer Simon worked in publicity before getting the chance to direct his own films. Working primarily in Spain, Simon has written and produced nearly all of his movies, genre fare like Supersonic Man (1978), Mystery on Monster Island (1981), The Pod People (1983) and Slugs (1988). In all honesty, most of these aren’t very good, but there is a certain hackneyed charm present in all his films.

The film’s producers selected the American members of the Pieces cast. Simon hired Ian Sera, Frank Brana and Jack Taylor, all of whom he’d worked with before. The Asian actor who played the unexpected kung fu professor was working on a film of one of the producers when he visited the Pieces set. Deciding to take advantage of the actor’s fighting expertise, Simon came up with the karate sequence on the spot. The rest, as they say, is history.

Christopher George and Lynda Day George met the set of The Gentle Rain (1966) and were married not long after completing work on the John Wayne western Chisum (1970). They worked together throughout the decade in television movies like House on Greenapple Road (1970), Mayday at 40,000 Feet (1976) and Cruise Into Terror (1978). Their final big screen appearance together was in 1983’s Mortuary. Christopher George died of a heart attack in November of that year. With the exception of a few TV guest spots, Lynda retired from acting after her husband’s death.

The Pieces DVD from Grindhouse Releasing is a cult movie lovers dream come true. The first disc contains the remastered film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Certain scenes appear a little grainy, but this is due to the movie’s low-budget origins, otherwise the picture is flawless. Audio options include the English version with stock music cues, the Spanish subtitled version with the original music score and a newly recorded 5.1 live track titled ‘The Vine Theatre Experience’ in which you can enjoy the movie along with the appreciative audience at a screening of Pieces at the Vine Theatre in Hollywood. Special features include the trailer and the original Spanish opening sequence. The second disc includes two in-depth interviews (each approx. an hour) with Juan Piquer Simon and Paul L. Smith. In lieu of a commentary track, these interviews more than satisfy any questions about the making of the film. There are the requisite photo galleries including the featurette ‘Juan Piquer’s Still Show’ in which the director shares with the viewer some of his Pieces memorabilia, including the original nudie puzzle prop. An Easter egg in the galleries menu reveal more footage from the ‘Still Show’ in which Simon goes over the old topless casting photos and reveals his dislike of the Baldwin brothers (it makes sense when you watch it). Filmographies and previews of other Grindhouse Releasing titles (14 in all) are also included.

Creatively gruesome chainsaw murders, surprise ninja attacks and the awesome acting talents of Lynda Day George (“Bastard!”) make Pieces must see viewing for aficionados of cool cinema trash.