Reflections on ... Scorchy (1976)

 

Recently watched: low-brow 1976 grindhouse crime thriller Scorchy. IMDb’s ultra-concise plot summary: “Connie Stevens is Jackie "Scorchy" Parker, the hottest undercover agent the Feds have ever known. She makes fast friends - and deadly enemies.” 

I’d always yearned to see this one, but found Scorchy somehow not quite as juicy or fun as I hoped, especially considering its outrageous tagline (“She's Killed a Man, Been Shot at And Made Love Twice Already This Evening... And The Evening Isn't Over Yet!”). The storyline sees spunky fun-loving narcotics agent Jackie (Stevens) orchestrating an elaborate undercover operation to nab heroin-smuggling drug baron Philip Bianco (Cesare Danova). There are shoot-outs and car chases - AND helicopter and speedboat chases! (Considering Scorchy’s director Howard Avedis mainly focused on sexploitation fare like The Teacher (1974) and Dr Minx (1975), he shows a real flair for action sequences). 

/ Representative glimpse of the ultra-seventies hair, clothes and decor in Scorchy /

Scorchy frequently suggests a 1970s Blaxploitation flick, but with honkies in the central roles. Like, it feels like it should be Pam Grier playing Jackie, but it’s Connie Stevens. (And Grier’s superior 1975 film Friday Foster hits some of the same trashy sweet spots as Scorchy). Anyway, the then 38-year-old Stevens seizes the opportunity to distance herself from her ingenue days as Cricket Blake in TV’s Hawaiian Eye. There are glimpses of her bare breasts, a gratuitous skinny-dipping scene and raunchy dialogue aplenty delivered in Stevens’ trademark whispery babydoll voice (in the context of Scorchy, 1970s women’s liberation equals Jackie exclaiming about getting laid. In one exchange, she teases her boss Chief Frank O’Brien (Norman Burton) with “You look tense. You need a blowjob!” Perhaps understandably, he responds, “You’re a fruitcake, you bitch!”). I know the character is based on Stevens’ sex kitten contemporary Joey Heatherton, but with her frosted pale lipstick and feathered blow-dried hair, in her close-ups Stevens frequently resembles Catherine O’Hara as Lola Heatherton in SCTV. Anyway, you also get the backdrop of Seattle in the 1970s AND hunky young male starlet Greg Evigan before B J and The Bear. Weirdly, in theory “Scorchy” is meant to be Jackie’s nickname but I don’t recall any of the characters addressing her by that in the entire film?

/ Above: Catherine O'Hara as Lola Heatherton in SCTV. Below: publicity shot of Connie Stevens for Scorchy (clearly, the movie's poster was adapted from this pic) /

Watch Scorchy on YouTube. (Because of the sex and violence on offer, you will need to log-in!).

Reflections on ... The Unholy Wife (1957)

 

/ Illustration by Olivier Coulon /

Recently watched: The Unholy Wife (1957). Tagline: “Half-angel. Half-devil. She made him half-a-man!” 

This pedestrian but enjoyably sordid film noir is unique for being made in scorching colour. Even in the faded print circulating on YouTube, British sex bomb leading lady Diana Dors’ gleaming platinum hair and skin-tight costumes in royal blue, fuchsia and ice pink are eye-popping. (Director John Farrow was no hack: he made some of Robert Mitchum’s greatest films (Where Danger Lives (1950), His Kind of Woman (1951). He clearly had an “off day” here). 

The Unholy Wife offers a portrait of a dysfunctional marriage in the verdant sun-dappled vineyards of Napa Valley. Or as the publicity blurb promises “This is the wine cellar of the most respectable house in the Valley. This is where she met them, made love to them, laughed with them at her husband … at the man who gave her a name, a home and a heritage – the man she wanted to destroy!” The action unfolds in flashback, with present-day Phyllis (whose name evokes the Barbara Stanwyck character Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944)) in jail, recounting the events that led to her imprisonment. (In these scenes, jailbird Dors is seen scrubbed of make-up and sporting brown hair, which can’t help but recall her earlier British film Yield to the Night (1956)). In a role originally intended for Shelley Winters, Dors is a seething, manipulative married woman scheming with her lantern-jawed, broad-shouldered lover San (hunky Tom Tryon) to murder her cuckolded husband, vineyard owner Paul (played by Rod Steiger – in a role originally intended for Ernest Borgnine - in the then-fashionable mumbling Actor’s Studio tradition). Wringing her hands in the background is mother-in-law Emma, played by Beulah Bondi (a part intended for Ethel Barrymore). 

/ Tom Tryon and Diana Dors in The Unholy Wife /

Watch for one truly glorious sequence of Phyllis and her pal Gwen (hard-boiled, nicotine-saturated noir icon Marie Windsor) toiling as “hostesses” at a low-down gin joint. While the blowzy resident nightclub singer (Maxine Gates) wails “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road”), Phyllis – sheathed in sensational silver lamé - kvetches, “Not much action around here tonight.” Windsor’s appearance is fleeting and makes you wish The Unholy Wife was mainly 90-minutes of just her and Dors hanging out. The commercial and critical failure of The Unholy Wife ultimately cut short Dors’ brief and unhappy sojourn in Hollywood, and she returned to the United Kingdom. (For gossip-hungry sensationalism freaks, Dors and Steiger - both married to other people - had a fling during production).

/ Frustratingly, I couldn't source a good colour image of Marie Windsor and Diana Dors online in this nightclub sequence. (Windsor's dress is bright red). /

Watch The Unholy Wife here.

Reflections on ... Death at Love House (1976)

 

Recently watched: 1976 ABC Movie of the Week Death at Love House. Joel and Donna Gregory (Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson) are a husband-and-wife writing duo collaborating on a biography of the doomed Hollywood star Lorna Love, who died tragically young in 1935. (Coincidentally, Joel’s artist father had an impassioned affair with Lorna and painted a portrait of her). And for reasons never fully explained, the couple move into Love’s totally intact Hollywood mansion to research their book (Love House was shot on location at the former estate of silent movie star Harold Lloyd). 

Creepily, Lorna’s perfectly preserved, eternally youthful corpse is on permanent display – Snow White-style - in a shrine on the premises. Strange occurrences immediately start happening. Who is the ethereal “woman-in-white” Donna glimpses in the garden? Why are there macabre occult symbols everywhere? Who was Father Eternal Fire, Lorna’s satanic looking “spiritual advisor”? And who tried to kill Donna in the locked bathroom by carbon monoxide poisoning? 

Obviously, almost anything produced by Aaron Spelling is bound to be campy fun. Raspy-voiced, gorgeous young Jackson is always an engaging screen presence. With its emphasis on occultism, golden age Hollywood and lurid showbiz tragedies (Lorna is clearly inspired by Jean Harlow), Love House suggests a page torn from Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon. It will also remind you of other, infinitely superior movies: Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968), Fedora (1978). And like 1944 film noir Laura, characters spend a lot of time staring, mesmerized, by an oil painting of a dead woman. For verisimilitude, supporting parts are played by actual classic Hollywood veterans like Sylvia Sidney, Joan Blondell, Dorothy Lamour and John Carradine. (The Gregorys’ literary agent is played by Bill Macy - Walter from Maude!). 

Less happily, zero effort is taken to make Lorna 1930s “period appropriate”. (She’s seen in flashbacks portrayed by Marianna Hill - cult movie fans will recognize her from Messiah of Evil (1973) and The Baby (1973) - with a feathered blow-dried 70s Farrah Fawcett coiffure). And the ending is worthy of an old episode of Scooby-Doo! Smudged, murky prints of Love House are easy to find on YouTube.

Dame Zandra Rhodes' Christmas Pop-Up on 28 November 2024

 

Last week, venerable fuchsia-haired doyenne of fashion Dame Zandra Rhodes threw open the doors to her salon to the public for her annual Christmas pop-up – and I attended on Thursday 28 November with my glamourpuss German friend Anne Kathrin! 

For the uninitiated, Rhodes resides in the palatial “Rainbow Penthouse” above the bright orange Fashion and TextileMuseum in Bermondsey. Every time I attend an exhibit there, I wonder, Is Zandra at home? Can I pop up, say Hi and check out the view from her terrace? Well, reader, I finally got up there! Here’s my scene report! (The event was rammed with people but I did manage to snap some photos!). 

/ Life-size cardboard figure of Zandra Rhodes in the corner. /

/ Caftans. Caftans. CAFTANS! Rhodes is of course synonymous with filmy, float-y bedazzled chiffon caftans. /

/ Pop art portrait of Rhodes in hallway to her powder room. /

/ Decor in Zandra Rhodes' corridor. /

/ Diva summit meeting: Anne Kathrin with Dame Zandra Rhodes. By the way, Rhodes is standing in this pic - she is diminutive! Must be about 4'11"! /

/ Me in front of Zandra Rhodes' wall of faux Warhol portraits! /

Reflections on ... Rent-A-Cop (1987)

Recently watched: Rent-A-Cop (1987). When Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli were originally teamed for the 1975 film Lucky Lady, the result was a notorious and expensive mega-flop. So, I could kiss on the lips whoever approved reuniting the duo for crime thriller / romantic comedy hybrid Rent-A-Cop, the acme of gleefully enjoyable 1980s schlock. 

When a police sting operation goes horrifically wrong, gruff tough-as-nails Detective Tony Church (Reynolds) joins forces with kooky free-spirited escort girl Della Roberts (Minnelli). Della, you see, witnessed the carnage and is the sole person who can identify masked gunman Adam "Dancer" Booth (played by James Remar. Sex and the City fans will recognise him as Samantha Jones’ on-off boyfriend Richard Wright. Remar also made his share of good movies, like The Warriors, Cruising (both 1979) and Drugstore Cowboy (1989)). But not if Dancer kills her first! Or, as Rent-A-Cop's tagline exclaims “There’s a killer on the loose and the lady is the target.” 

Inevitably – after some wacky hi-jinks - the sparring odd couple of Tony and Della gradually fall in love. Aside from a cameo appearance in The Muppets Take Manhattan, this represents Minnelli’s first screen role after a gap of five years following her highly publicized stint at the Betty Ford Clinic (her previous major part was Arthur in 1981). Awash in sequins and mugging furiously, this is certainly Minnelli at her most “Minnelli”. Della’s sex work is depicted as a wholesome TV sitcom-friendly lark (she offers her johns the gamut of “his mommy, Little Bo-Peep, or Helga the Bitch Goddess”. It should be noted that the same year, Minnelli’s peer Barbra Streisand also unconvincingly played a high-price prostitute in Nuts). 

Anyway, Rent-A-Cop abounds with “what-the-fuck?” moments: Dancer inexplicably performs a sweaty homoerotic Flashdance-style number in front of a mirror. A bewigged drag queen at a nightclub accosts Della with “I love your muff!” Guest star Dionne Warwick portrays Della’s madam. Weirdly, Rent-A-Cop is set in Chicago and exteriors were shot there but the interiors were filmed in Rome’s Cinecittà Studios. And the screenplay was written by Michael Blodgett – best-remembered by cult cinema fans as hunky Lance Rock in the 1970 Russ Meyer sexploitation classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls! Reynolds and Minnelli were both nominated for the 1988 Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Actor and Worst Actress (Minnelli won). 

Further reading: the Cranky Lesbian blog’s shrewdand in-depth analysis. She quotes Reynolds' not very chivalrous but frank recollection on acting opposite Minnelli: “She’s not the easiest person in the world to act with. She’s never quite with you. It’s like she’s reading something somewhere off-camera. Yet she’s amazing as a live performer.”

Reflections on ... The Substance (2024)

 

/ Demi Moore in The Substance (2024) /

Hagsploitation truly is the horror sub-genre that keeps on giving. Sparked by the unexpected success of 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? in the 1960s and 70s, maturing female stars of golden age Hollywood extended their careers by swallowing their pride, embracing their inner scream queen and plunging into exploitation shockers: think of Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Tallulah Bankhead, Olivia de Havilland, Agnes Moorehead and Shelley Winters starring in the likes of Strait-Jacket, Hush … Hush … Sweet Charlotte, Berserk, Lady in a Cage, Die! Die! My Darling, Dear Dead Delilah and especially the “question movies” Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?, What’s the Matter with Helen? and What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? 

Roaring back from career doldrums (I last remember her playing Miley Cyrus’ mother in 2012), 61-year-old Demi Moore finds herself in a similar position in director Coralie Fargeat’s grisly and stylish satire The Substance. In a gutsy, exposed (in every sense) performance, Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a middle-aged television celebrity abruptly fired by ageist and sexist network executive (Dennis Quaid, really chomping the scenery). Despondent, Elisabeth takes desperate measures to rejuvenate her “best self” with a mysterious unregulated black market scientific procedure called The Substance … and things swiftly unravel. 

Characterized by stunning art direction and a visceral sound design that emphasizes every repulsive squelching noise, The Substance ratchets up maximum dread and offers a goldmine of knowing movie references: Basket Case. Carrie. Death Becomes Her. The Elephant Man. The Shining. Every single David Cronenberg “body horror” flick but particularly The Fly. Thematically, it reminded me of two specific b-movies from the late 1950s: The Wasp Woman and The Leech Woman, in which the anti-heroine experiments with science (or voodoo) to restore youth and beauty with monstrous consequences (and – it must be noted - these films make their point with a fraction of The Substance’s budget and two hour-and 40-minute running time). 

The Substance is bound to be divisive. There was multiple “walk outs” when I saw it yesterday. Does it critique society's youth fixation or wind up reaffirming it? And has Fargeat lost control of the material by the ultra-gory splatter fest finale? However you cut it, it’s a wild ride and destined for cult status.

Reflections on ... The Weak and the Wicked (1954)

 

/ Pictured: Diana Dors and Glynis Johns in The Weak and the Wicked (1954) /

Recently watched: The Weak and the Wicked (1954) (re-titled Young and Willing for the North American market). Tagline: “Frank, raw-truth exposé of women’s prisons! The terrors … abuses … scandals!” 

Who doesn’t love a gritty women-in-prison exploitation movie? Give me a Caged (1950), Women’s Prison (1955), Betrayed Women (1955), Girls in Prison (1956), Women Without Men (1956) or Caged Heat (1974) and I am entranced! (The whole genre was brilliantly parodied by SCTV in 1977 in the essential sketch “Broads Behind Bars”). 

Compared to these lurid, hard-boiled American exemplars, the British variation The Weak and the Wicked undeniably feels buttoned-up, drab, downbeat and yes, tame, by comparison but it’s not without its merits. Glynis Johns stars as Jean Raymond, a posh upper-class woman (she wears prim little white gloves!) with a gambling addiction sentenced to prison on a trumped-up fraud charge. We watch as Jean and the other new arrivals file-in to be “processed” by the stern prison matrons: weighed, bathed (“strip!”), checked for lice and issued their frumpy uniforms. Once installed, Jean promptly befriends brassy peroxide blonde Betty Brown (the perennially sensational Diana Dors. Betty’s first words to Jean: “gizza fag!”). With each new female inmate Jean encounters, we get a flashback outlining her backstory (some are funny, some are tragic). British cinema aficionados should watch for Rachel Roberts, Sybil Thorndike, Irene Handl and Sid James in small roles. (I think it was contractually obligated for either James or Herbert Lom to appear in every single British film of the period). Director J Lee Thompson would reunite with Dors for yet another, better-known women-in-prison movie, Yield to the Night (inspired by the Ruth Ellis case) in 1956.