Movies

Cool Cinema Trash: Santa Claus (1959)

Dec 16, 2014 | Cool Cinema Trash, Movies

Calling one of producer K. Gordon Murray’s Mexican-made flicks bizarre is like calling the sky blue or saying that corn flakes are crunchy… it’s simply a given. But words cannot express the severity of holiday weirdness on display in Santa Claus (1959) a children’s fantasy that mixes religious and secular traditions in an intoxicating brew that is sure to leave even the strongest bad movie fan with an unforgettable holiday hangover.

What it’s all about: The parade of the bizarre begins with a castle floating in the clouds. No, it’s not Mount Olympus, home of the Greek Gods. Santa, it seems, forgoes his traditional workshop in the frozen North for a palace in the sky where he can keep a God’s eye view on the children of earth.

Santa sits at his pipe organ, which is outfitted with a viewing screen, to check in on Toyland, a sweatshop where the children of many nations make the gifts he’ll deliver on Xmas eve. “Here are gathered the boys and girls of different races and creeds,” explains the omnipresent narrator, “They have come from many lands to help Santa bring joy and happiness to all of the Earth’s children.”

The workers don’t really work, they stand around in their native garb singing indigenous folk songs, much like a live-action version of Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World”. The looks on the kid’s faces range from mild indifference to outright boredom as the camera captures their multi-cultural performances. The African children hop around in leopard skin loincloths banging on drums while the Mexican children sing “La Cucaracha”. The kids from the U.S. warble “Mary had a Little Lamb” and are dressed like miniature versions Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

Meanwhile, in the fiery pits of Hell, Pitch the devil leads his brethren in a production number. Lucifer tells Pitch to knock it off and get down to some evil doing, “If you do not succeed in making all the children of the Earth do evil, you will be punished!”

Wishing to avoid the forced consumption of chocolate ice cream, Pitch heads to Earth where three young hoodlums immediately catch his eye. How can we tell they’re bad? They wear leather motorcycle jackets of course. Pitch provides them with rocks that they throw at a Christmas window display. “Nothing that happens on Earth is unknown to Santa Claus,” the narrator reminds us. Santa definitely knows something is amiss and asks his young friend Pedro to check in on the children of earth.

“By the magic powers look for the child we are seeking,” Pedro commands, “whether she is in a cave or behind a million mountains.” Santa’s magic observatory is filled with strange machinery the likes of which even Dr. Seuss couldn’t dream up. Using the Master Telescope (which comes complete with a retractable and slightly creepy “Master Eye”) they locate little Lupita at a Mexican Xmas carnival.

At Pitch’s urging, the adorable little ragamuffin considers stealing a doll from a street vendor. Lupita puts the doll back much to Santa’s delight, “Hooray for her! Hooray for her! All my friends can ignore the devil! All they need to win is to be good in spirit.”

He next checks in on poor little rich boy Billy. Though Billy is asleep, it doesn’t stop Santa from prying into his mind with the Dreamscope. Billy fantasizes of unwrapping refrigerator-sized boxes on Christmas day. “Why they contain what a child loves best,” the narrator gushes as Billy opens his gifts, “His parents!” Wow. Talk about mid-century social conditioning.

“A dream is a wish the heart makes,” Santa declares after witnessing the touching scene. Since Disney doesn’t take kindly to copyright infringement, let’s hope Santa has a good legal team on retainer. Santa checks in again on Lupita, who dreams of the doll she so desperately wants. Thanks to Pitch, the dream becomes a nightmare as little Lupita is surrounded by two-faced, dancing zombie dolls! While the dolls spin and twirl, the young actress playing Lupita looks to the camera as if to ask, “WTF!?!” Where is the child safety board when you need it?

“You must be evil if you want a doll,” a satanic dancing toy tells her.

“To steal is evil and I don’t want to be evil.”

Atta girl Lupita, you tell ‘em.

At the post office, bags of Santa’s mail get tossed into the furnace, where the letters rise up on the smoky air to Santa’s heavenly home. Santa is really, really happy to be buried in mail. After sorting through some of the letters, Santa visits Merlin’s laboratory. While preparing Santa’s “magic stardust”, the wizened wizard engages in some schtick that does little more than pad the running time. Santa heads down the hall to visit Vulcan, iron forger to the Gods and maker of magic keys.

Santa’s slaves… er, helpers of many nations, prep Santa’s sleigh and white plastic reindeer. “Don’t forget,” Pedro insists, “You’ve got to return to the castle ahead of the sunrise because the sun will turn the reindeer into dust.” Huh? Are they vampire reindeer? No, Santa takes out a giant key and winds them up. So… they’re oversized mechanical vampire reindeer? Does this make any sense?

“Be off my reindeer and glide through the heavens as fast as you can go! May my palace of gold and crystal enjoy peace and Jesus the Son of God join us on earth so that we can all have joy and good will!” And with that odd request for the resurrection of Christ, Santa is off on his yuletide deliveries.

On earth, Billy’s parents tuck him in bed before leaving for a night out on the town, while the three little hoods hide on a rooftop scheming about kidnapping Santa Claus. Lupita has a heart to heart with her mom, explaining that if Santa brings her two dolls, she’ll share one with little baby Jesus.

Santa parks his sleigh in the clouds and climbs down a rope ladder to begin his deliveries. Pitch makes a few half-assed attempts at thwarting him, but nothing can keep St. Nick from his gift-giving errands. Billy awakens to find Santa Claus in his living room, “Santa Claus! You love me don’t you? Say you love me Santa!”

Jeez, talk about needy.

Billy has everything but the love of his mother and father. Santa gives him a very special gift… a guilt trip for his neglectful parents. At their chi-chi soirée, a “waiter” slips them a magical holiday Mickey that reminds them that they have a son at home all alone. A merry Christmas Eve reunion takes place. Billy’s dream has come true.

Pitch tries to enlist the help of the troublesome trio in putting a stop to Santa’s do-gooding ways. A comet (or something) passes by, scarring the kids into abandoning their plot. They hurry home to discover lumps of coal in their stockings.

At his next house, Santa forgoes the traditional rooftop delivery and traipses through the front yard instead. Pitch sicks the family dog on him, forcing Santa up a tree. Pitch then awakens most of the neighborhood so that they can all witness Santa’s embarrassing predicament. The police and fire department race to the scene, while the family inside the house draw their weapons, preparing to shoot any intruders they find.

Using the Tele-talker machine in Santa’s observatory, Pedro and Merlin overhear Santa’s cries for help and suggest he use a toy cat to distract the ferocious canine. Once the hellhound has been dealt with and Pitch has been drenched by the fire department, Santa makes a run for it. “I still have one more friend to visit, I mustn’t fail her.”

Lupita awakens as her father returns from a long night of job hunting (He spent all Xmas Eve looking for work? Sure, that makes perfect sense). Lupita runs outside to find a doll as big as she is. Her mother makes the sign of the cross. It’s a Christmas miracle!

As Santa’s sleigh rockets through the heavens, the narrator concludes with this, “Once again Santa returns to his palace from his yearly Christmas rounds. He is happy and gay, for once again he has brought joy to the children of the world.”

The holiday adventure is wrapped up with this sentiment presented on a needlepoint sampler, “Blessed are those who believe, for they shall see God. Peace on earth. Good will toward men.”

In conclusion: Audiences have K. Gordon Murray to thank (or blame depending on your point of view) for bringing Santa Claus to American movie houses and TV screens in the mid 60’s. The Florida based producer repackaged and dubbed Mexican product for the U.S. market and became particularly well known for the kid’s matinée titles he distributed. Murray rarely copyrighted these films and, after their initial run in theaters and on television, most of them faded into obscurity. Long in the public domain, Santa Claus can usually be found for free online or in stores around the holidays on budget priced/no-fills DVD.

2013 marked the Blu-ray premiere of this odd holiday classic. Fully restored and loaded with kitchy bonus features, Santa Claus can now be enjoyed in all it’s wonderfully wierd HD glory!

Cool Cinema Trash: A Rage to Live (1965)

Dec 9, 2014 | Cool Cinema Trash, Movies

The names and places didn’t matter… only when!

What it’s all about: Though she was twenty-eight at the time, Suzanne Pleshette plays Grace Caldwell, a teenage jezebel with A Rage to Live (1965). One afternoon, as she changes out of her school clothes, Grace is watched by her brother’s friend Charlie Jay (Mark Goddard of television’s Lost in Space). After some snappy banter with her uninvited admirer, she announces that she’s going to take a shower. “Maybe I could scrub your back?” he suggests.

“That would be dull.” Grace deadpans. Unwilling to take no for an answer, Charlie wrestles her onto the chaise lounge. Trying to fight him off, she shouts, “I hate you.”

“Bet you don’t hate this,” Charlie growls as he kisses her. Proving that there is indeed a thin line between love and hate, Grace submits to his brutish advances.

Grace’s mother is worried about her daughter’s behavior. After a prolonged absence from a party one evening, she goes looking for Grace, only to find her in the drive-way, in the backseat of a car. Grace explains that she was “Just getting some air.” In the backseat of a Chevy?

Grace’s mother confesses her concerns to the family doctor during a checkup. With a rather progressive attitude, he espouses this child raising gem, “When they’re fifteen years old we tell them, sex is dynamite…don’t touch it. Six or seven years later they come around, tell you they’re gonna get married, you say, ok fine…play with the dynamite.”

Meanwhile, Grace is partaking in some afternoon delight with Charlie Jay in the basement rec room of his family’s split-level ranch. After being caught by Charlie’s mom (Brett Somers of television’s Match Game) Grace isn’t ashamed, but indignant, and walks out with her head held high.

“Charles, tell your father what Grace Caldwell was doing here, that sweet, refined, little slut.” After an interrogation by his disciplinarian father and ball-busting mother, Charlie side-steps responsibility by telling them that he isn’t the only one Grace has been with.

After receiving a neighborly phone call, Grace’s mother confronts her about the affair. Knowing that it’s no use playing the innocent, Grace downplays the scandalous accusations. “We were necking, just necking. I don’t expect to get a gold star for that, but it’s a long way from what she’s talking about.”

Some clarification is in order, “What do you call necking?”

Like a wild animal backed into a corner, Grace lashes out, “I told you nothing happened!”

“Very well dear, I’ll take your word for it.” Though she knows very well that her daughter has become the town tramp. Moments later, Grace rushes downstairs to find that her mother has collapsed.

After a doctor’s exam, rest and relaxation are prescribed for her “condition”. Grace’s older brother (much, much older, he smokes a pipe for crissakes) comes home from Yale to handle the situation. He insists that Grace reform or risk their mother’s life. When asked about her affair with Charlie Jay, Grace attempts to explain her sexual compulsions, “I don’t care how it sounds. When I feel that way, I can’t think of anything else. Doesn’t matter who I am or what I’m supposed to be. Nothing matters. I can’t help it.”

At a country club Christmas soirée Grace is fixed up with reputable Sidney Tate (Bradford Dillman). When a drunken Charlie almost ruins their evening, Sidney gallantly defends her honor. After a tame goodnight kiss, grace sums him up, “You’re very nice Sidney.”

While on vacation in the Bahamas, Grace plays nursemaid to her ailing mother. Despite a respectable beau back home, Grace begins to feel that familiar itch, and she needs it scratched. She sneaks out of her room for a moonlit rendezvous with a hotel employee. When Grace returns she finds her mother on the floor, the victim of a fatal heart attack.

After a respectable mourning period, Sidney proposes marriage and Grace decides to come clean about her past. “I’ve done some foolish things, some bad things. They weren’t meant to be bad but…well, I guess you know what I mean. I’m ready to give all my love to you Sidney, but I had to tell you.”

After her white wedding (who is she kidding?) Grace manages to achieve a certain level of suburban bliss, a husband, a country house, and a son of her own. It even looks as if Grace has squelched her sexual compulsions, until contractor Roger Bannon (Ben Gazzara) arrives to do some handiwork.

When a girlfriend picks her up for a day of shopping and sees the swarthy looks Roger is giving Grace, she asks, “Grace is everything alright?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know.” Yup, we sure do.

One rainy afternoon, after a cozy ride into town, Roger confesses his long standing obsession with Grace. “From the first time I saw you I haven’t been able to stop looking. Not that I wanted to stop. Looking at you became one of the big pleasures in my life. Maybe the biggest. And all that time, I’ve been wanting you. And I guess I’ll go on wanting you until they shovel me into the ground.” That’s all she needs to hear. After a passionate afternoon in his office, they begin a steamy affair.

After seeing her flirt with newspaper editor Jack Hollister (Peter Graves), Roger confronts Grace on the country road that leads to her house. “I’m in love with you. Sure, I know, we started off like a couple of animals, but it’s not like that any more. Oh Grace I need you.” He sees a future for them, but she has no intention of sacrificing her family. Grace takes off in her car, nearly running him down. “Rich, lousy, slut!” he shouts after her.

Later, at a roadside motel, Roger takes out his frustrations on an innocent woman, “Whores! You’re all whores!” He causes such a commotion that the police are called and a car chase ensues. After taking a turn too fast, Roger flips his truck and it explodes.

Jack Hollister hushes up the true circumstances behind Bannon’s death to protect Grace. When he returns home to his lush of a wife Amy, she lashes out at him, thinking he’s late because he’s sleeping with Grace. With their relationship in shambles, Jack announces that he’s ending their marriage. “You’re leaving me for that tramp?!”

Watch out Grace. As they say, hell hath no fury…

The next day, Grace prepares for the women’s auxiliary charity event that she’s hosting. Word of Roger Bannon’s half-mad ravings about Grace on the night of his death eventually make their way to Sidney. When he confronts her, she tearfully tries to make amends, “I never loved him. Not for a second.”

“There’s no love or regret here, you’re just sorry you got caught. Well, you said to hell with the rules, and to hell with me, so Grace…the hell with you.” After the charity carnival he plans on leaving and taking their son with him.

Its big drama under the big top when Amy comes searching for her estranged husband. Grace tries to take Amy outside, but angry and belligerent, she wants everyone to hear her tale of woe, “Get your hands off me, I’ll say whatever I want.”

Attempting to control the situation, Grace tells her to, “Shut up.”

“You steal somebody’s husband and she’s supposed to shut up? You don’t have that much money you tramp!” Grace slaps her and Amy crumples to the ground, a sobbing, emotionally broken woman.

Under the mistaken impression that she’s had affairs with Bannon, Jack Hollister and God knows who else, Sidney’s had enough and leaves to pack his bags. Grace runs after him, but is left alone to finally realize that her search for physical love has destroyed the only true love she has ever known. “Oh my God…Sidney.”

As the soundtrack swells to an orchestral cocophany of gothic strings that bring to mind pain, suffering, and eternal damnation, this moralistic prolog appears on screen:

Wise wretch! With Pleasures too refin’d to please;
With too much spirit to be e’er at ease…
You purchase Pain with all that Joy can give
And die of nothing but a Rage to live.

In conclusion: A Rage to Live (1965) and Butterfield 8 (1960) are cinematic siblings, of sorts. Both are based on books by John O’Hara, and both tell the story of a tramp trying to achieve respectability, only to ruin the lives of those she loves. Butterfield 8 is the more popular of the two because of Elizabeth Taylor’s Oscar win and her behind-the-scenes shenanigans with co-star Eddie Fisher. But with moody black and white photography and a delicious performance by Suzanne Pleshette, A Rage to Live deserves the same attention as its Academy Award winning sister.

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.