Reflections on ... Satan in High Heels (1962)

Satan in High Heels (1962). Tagline: “They all went where the heat was hottest!” 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). Hard-boiled and stylish, Satan in High Heels represents the acme of early sixties sexploitation not made by Russ Meyer. Characterized by exceptionally good acting, noir-ish and atmospheric black-and-white cinematography and an urgent jazz soundtrack, Satan was filmed in just 21 days with an estimated budget of less than $100,000 – and is a taut 89-minute journey into deep sleaze.

The plot offers the same essential premise as an earlier b-movie I recently raved about, Wicked Woman (1953) starring Beverly Michaels: a disreputable trampy woman washes-up in a new town and proceeds to stir-up trouble. In this case, it’s scheming, manipulative and utterly amoral fairground burlesque dancer Stacey Kane (played by 1950s chanteuse and pin-up queen Meg Myles). Weary of her hard-scrabble two-bit existence bumping-and-grinding in the carnival, Stacey robs her useless heroin addict husband of $900 and flees to New York to re-invent herself as a singer. Cynically using sex and a smile, the redheaded vixen inveigles her way into a gig crooning at the upscale Greenwich Village nightclub managed by fiercely chic and jaded lesbian proprietress Pepe (the reliably-intense Grayson Hall, in a role anticipating Elaine Stritch in Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965)). Stacey promptly becomes the mistress of wealthy married businessman Arnold Kenyon, but – to considerably complicate things – she also pursues Kenyon’s feckless beatnik son Laurence. (Within the context of the film, we’re presumably meant to think young Laurence is the “appropriate” love interest, but the actor who plays Arnold is significantly more appealing – he’s a suave silver-haired DILF in the tradition of Roger Sterling in Mad Men). 

/ Check out those credits ... /

/ Stacy's audition at Pepe's club, accompanied by foxy gay pianist Paul /

/ Pepe (Grayson Hall) and club owner Arnold Kenyon (Mike Keene) confer. The forlorn woman drinking alone in the background is Felice, Kenyon’s current mistress. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to be dumped for Stacy. /

Aside from some fleeting glimpses of side boob in a gratuitous skinny-dipping scene, no actual nudity is on display. But Satan’s producer Leonard Burtman’s background was in the realm of fetish porn magazines (his specialist titles included Bizarre Life, Exotique and High Heels), and that sensibility is amply reflected onscreen in the emphasis on Stacey’s spike-heeled Spring-o-Lator mules (her footwear is by Sydney's of Hollywood) and especially the kinky black leather dominatrix ensemble she wears (complete with jodhpurs and riding crop) growling the climactic musical number “The Female of the Species” (sample lyric: "I'm the kind of woman/ Not hard to understand / I'm the kind that cracks the whip /And takes the upper hand". At points you can audibly hear the leather creaking as Stacy moves).  Everyone snarls their tough-as-nails dialogue, chain-smokes and knocks-back hard liquor. (You could play a fun drinking game taking a sip every time a character onscreen does, but it would risk projectile vomiting). 

Sporting an impressive lacquered beehive, Meg Myles is wholly commanding as bitch goddess extraordinaire Stacey. She radiates bad girl anti-charm, and she’s got a sultry way of delivering a jazz torch song, too. Satan is at its most campily enjoyable in the scenes of Stacey and stern task mistress Pepe sparring (the club’s handsome gay pianist Paul – played by Del Tenney – sometimes joins in). “I’m not upset. I’m tired,” Stacy complains at one point. “T-I-R-E-D!” "You'll eat and drink what I say until you lose five pounds IN THE PLACES WHERE!" Pepe fires back. “I don’t care if you can breathe or not – you’ll wear a girdle and smile!” With her butch tailored suits, fussy little bow ties and ascots and long cigarette holder, Grayson Hall is a consummate scene stealer and a great LGBTQ role model! (Inexplicably, Hall hated this film and used to deny appearing in it). Watch also for simpering ultra-kitsch sex bomb Sabrina (the British Jayne Mansfield) as Stacey’s bitter rival. She's gloriously awful!

/ Meg Myles - leading lady of Satan in High Heels - in her fifties pin-up heyday /

/ Above and below: Sabrina in Satan in High Heels /

Watch Satan in High Heels here:

Read further analysis of Satan in High Heels here, here and here. See some beautiful screenshots here.   

Listen to the soundtrack of Satan in High Heels and feel like you're plunged into your own sordid b-movie here. (Unfortunately, the album on Spotify doesn't include the musical numbers by Meg Myles and Sabrina!).