Wicked Woman (1953). Taglines: “She lives
up to every scarlet letter of her name!” “She uses sex like a hoodlum uses a
loaded gun!”
I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend Pal is accompanying me only semi-willingly). For once: I can recommend an unequivocally great film. Low-budget independent noir melodrama Wicked Woman is a nasty little minor masterpiece from Hollywood’s poverty row underbelly. Like many a great movie, it begins with a trampy disreputable woman - no doubt fleeing something sordid in her past - arriving in an unspecified new town and commencing to stir up trouble. (The same premise as another film I love, Satan in High Heels (1962)).
The sullen peroxide blonde drifter (the titular “wicked woman”) is bad girl Billie Nash (portrayed by statuesque b-movie icon Beverly Michaels). We first glimpse brassy Billie stepping off a Trailways bus (the equivalent of a Greyhound, I assume). On the soundtrack Herb Jeffries (aka the Singing Cowboy, once married to burlesque queen Tempest Storm) croons a warning about her in the brilliant title tune (“You know before you’ve started / You’ll end up broken-hearted / But still you’re like a moth to the flame!”).
Billie swiftly locates a place to live (a $6 a week rented room in a squalid boarding house. Her neighbors are a gallery of grotesques) and secures a job waitressing at the local dive bar when the alcoholic proprietress Dora takes pity on her. (As Dora, Evelyn Scott’s drunk scenes are worthy of Susan Tyrrell). One problem: on her first night, Billie and Dora’s hunky bartender husband Matt (bronzed, granite-jawed epitome of beefcake Richard Egan) instantly fall in in lust (their tangible sexual attraction is scalding) and soon begin scheming a new life together in Mexico …
At just 77-minutes long, Wicked Woman is terse, flab-free story-telling that dispenses with niceties and plunges you straight into the action. Making a virtue of the threadbare budget, director Russell Rouse establishes a claustrophobic realm of dashed dreams, downtrodden lives and limited options, all saturated in a pervasive ambiance of sleaze and despair. Billie’s poverty feels grittily convincing. She is hungry in every sense (she ill-advisedly flirts with her lecherous next-door neighbor when she discerns that he’s frying a steak on his hot plate - something Billie will later regret). She seems to possess a grand total of two outfits (both are white, which recalls Lana Turner’s all-white wardrobe in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). As an actress, Michaels exudes an unvarnished low-life allure Turner could only dream of). Billie also owns only one record - “One Night in Acapulco” – which feeds her fantasy of escaping to Mexico. Everyone smokes and drinks incessantly (wearing only a slip, Billie cracks-open and swigs from a can of beer like an indolent goddess).
Michaels and the powerfully built Egan are magnetic together as the doomed couple. And they aren’t just superb physical specimens – both give nuanced, naturalistic and convincing performances here. I swear that Egan is as much a casualty of “lookism” or sexism as any female beauty queen: no one appraises or analyzes just how good he is because his career was primarily based on his (admittedly staggering) handsome appearance. Someone as good-looking as him couldn't possibly also be a good actor, in theory. But just because Egan makes it look easy doesn't mean it was. You never catch him (or Michaels) "acting" in Wicked Woman. I’d argue that this is Egan’s specialty (and perhaps why he is overlooked in the Golden Age Hollywood canon): he is such a quietly virile, steely presence onscreen that he allows his forceful leading ladies to shine. (Think of his work opposite Joan Crawford in The Damned Don’t Cry (1950), Jane Russell in The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956), or even Lana Turner in the ludicrous camp classic The Big Cube (1969). Egan is the only cast member who emerges from that with any dignity intact). And the sulky Michaels is simply a revelation! She is b-movie royalty!
Watch Wicked Woman below.
I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend Pal is accompanying me only semi-willingly). For once: I can recommend an unequivocally great film. Low-budget independent noir melodrama Wicked Woman is a nasty little minor masterpiece from Hollywood’s poverty row underbelly. Like many a great movie, it begins with a trampy disreputable woman - no doubt fleeing something sordid in her past - arriving in an unspecified new town and commencing to stir up trouble. (The same premise as another film I love, Satan in High Heels (1962)).
The sullen peroxide blonde drifter (the titular “wicked woman”) is bad girl Billie Nash (portrayed by statuesque b-movie icon Beverly Michaels). We first glimpse brassy Billie stepping off a Trailways bus (the equivalent of a Greyhound, I assume). On the soundtrack Herb Jeffries (aka the Singing Cowboy, once married to burlesque queen Tempest Storm) croons a warning about her in the brilliant title tune (“You know before you’ve started / You’ll end up broken-hearted / But still you’re like a moth to the flame!”).
Billie swiftly locates a place to live (a $6 a week rented room in a squalid boarding house. Her neighbors are a gallery of grotesques) and secures a job waitressing at the local dive bar when the alcoholic proprietress Dora takes pity on her. (As Dora, Evelyn Scott’s drunk scenes are worthy of Susan Tyrrell). One problem: on her first night, Billie and Dora’s hunky bartender husband Matt (bronzed, granite-jawed epitome of beefcake Richard Egan) instantly fall in in lust (their tangible sexual attraction is scalding) and soon begin scheming a new life together in Mexico …
At just 77-minutes long, Wicked Woman is terse, flab-free story-telling that dispenses with niceties and plunges you straight into the action. Making a virtue of the threadbare budget, director Russell Rouse establishes a claustrophobic realm of dashed dreams, downtrodden lives and limited options, all saturated in a pervasive ambiance of sleaze and despair. Billie’s poverty feels grittily convincing. She is hungry in every sense (she ill-advisedly flirts with her lecherous next-door neighbor when she discerns that he’s frying a steak on his hot plate - something Billie will later regret). She seems to possess a grand total of two outfits (both are white, which recalls Lana Turner’s all-white wardrobe in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). As an actress, Michaels exudes an unvarnished low-life allure Turner could only dream of). Billie also owns only one record - “One Night in Acapulco” – which feeds her fantasy of escaping to Mexico. Everyone smokes and drinks incessantly (wearing only a slip, Billie cracks-open and swigs from a can of beer like an indolent goddess).
Michaels and the powerfully built Egan are magnetic together as the doomed couple. And they aren’t just superb physical specimens – both give nuanced, naturalistic and convincing performances here. I swear that Egan is as much a casualty of “lookism” or sexism as any female beauty queen: no one appraises or analyzes just how good he is because his career was primarily based on his (admittedly staggering) handsome appearance. Someone as good-looking as him couldn't possibly also be a good actor, in theory. But just because Egan makes it look easy doesn't mean it was. You never catch him (or Michaels) "acting" in Wicked Woman. I’d argue that this is Egan’s specialty (and perhaps why he is overlooked in the Golden Age Hollywood canon): he is such a quietly virile, steely presence onscreen that he allows his forceful leading ladies to shine. (Think of his work opposite Joan Crawford in The Damned Don’t Cry (1950), Jane Russell in The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956), or even Lana Turner in the ludicrous camp classic The Big Cube (1969). Egan is the only cast member who emerges from that with any dignity intact). And the sulky Michaels is simply a revelation! She is b-movie royalty!
Watch Wicked Woman below.
Further reading:
Read a perceptive and informative appreciation of Beverly Michaels here.
I totally agree with your assessment of this film and of Richard Egan's under appreciated gifts. He really was an outstanding actor who was never caught acting. He just was and didn't rely on shticks or unnecessary histrionics. Thank you for your blog.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes Richard Egan was the only cast member who emerged from "The Big Cube" with his dignity intact.
ReplyDelete