Next Lobotomy Room Film Club ... Satan in High Heels (1962) on 20 June 2024

 

This month, the FREE Lobotomy Room cinema club presents Satan in High Heels (1962)! 20 June 2024 at Fontaine’s bar! 

Hard-boiled and stylish, Satan in High Heels represents the acme of early sixties sexploitation cinema NOT made by Russ Meyer. Characterized by exceptionally good acting, atmospheric film noir 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! 

/ Above: jazz chanteuse, actress and pin-up queen Meg Myles as Stacey / 

Weary of her hard-scrabble two-bit existence bumping-and-grinding in the carnival, scheming, manipulative and utterly amoral fairground burlesque dancer Stacey Kane (Meg Myles) ditches her useless junkie husband and flees to New York to re-invent herself as a singer. Cynically employing 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). 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! As the poster’s tagline leers “The father … the son … the husband … the lover … they all had her … but she had them – right where the heat was hottest!” 

/ Stacey sparring with Pepe. With her butch tailored tweed suits, ascots and long cigarette holder, the fierce Grayson Hall is a consummate scene stealer and a great LGBTQ role model. So Satan makes an ideal choice for Pride Month! /

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 and that sensibility is amply reflected onscreen in the emphasis on Stacey’s spike-heeled Spring-o-Lator mules and 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"). 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). 

/ Watch also for simpering ultra-kitsch sex bomb Sabrina (the British Jayne Mansfield) playing herself as Stacey’s bitter burlesque rival. She’s gloriously awful! /

Lobotomy Room is the FREE monthly film club devoted to Bad Movies for Bad People! Third Thursday night of every month downstairs at Fontaine’s cocktail lounge in Dalston. Numbers are limited, so reserve your seat via Fontaine’s website.via Fontaine’s website. Alternatively, phone 07718000546 or email bookings@fontaines.bar. The film starts at 8:30 pm. Doors to the basement Bamboo Lounge open at 8:00 pm. To ensure everyone is seated and cocktails are ordered on time, please arrive by 8:15 pm at the latest. Full putrid details on Facebook event page. Facebook event page. 

Happy 60th Anniversary to Promises ... Promises! (1963)

 “The movie is a bedroom farce about a writer (Tommy Noonan) and his wife (Jayne) who are on a cruise with their friends, a famous actor (Mickey Hargitay) and his wife (Marie “The Body” McDonald). Tommy and Jayne want to have a baby, and Jayne takes various concoctions cooked up by the ship’s doctor. Tommy, who believes he is sterile, also drinks potency potions. There is a bedroom mix-up, a female impersonator who does Tallulah Bankhead imitations and two short sequences of Jayne thrashing about in bed bra-less, having disturbing dreams. It was because of these sequences that the movie was only shown in “art” theatres. Jet Fore, who was publicist for the movie, had erotic posters of Jayne printed up with a lot of words about the first time ever au naturel for a major star. Each sequence lasts about thirty seconds and bears no relation to the rest of the film which is as clean as a troop of Girl Scouts … In Promises … Promises! Jayne, wearing wedgies and skin-tight pedal pushers, straddles an open door and rubs her calf suggestively up and down against it. One expects the door to moan. It was theatre of sex at its most laughable.”

/ From Jayne Mansfield and the American Fifties by Martha Saxton, 1975 /

“It was at this point that Jayne made the most inexplicable, self-destructive move of her career, one that tipped her over from fading star to unemployable dirty joke. Actually, it was two moves: she agreed to star in the cheesy softcore porn film Promises … Promises! and to pose topless for Playboy … Why did Jayne agree to do nude scenes and in such a cheap film? She was not stupid or naïve when it came to show business – she had to have known no major studio would star her after this, and that family-friendly TV would be off-limits. But she had to work, even if she was a big nude fish in a small scummy pond.”

/ From Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It by Eve Golden, 2021 /

Today in smut history: the notorious Jayne Mansfield "nudie" movie Promises … Promises! was released sixty years ago (15 August 1963). It definitively ended the "reputable" part of her career.

Reflections on ... The Girl in the Black Stockings (1957)

 

Recently watched: The Girl in the Black Stockings (1957). Tagline: “She was every inch a teasing, taunting “come-on” blonde … and she made every inch pay off!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend is accompanying me only semi-willingly). 

/ The stars of The Girl in the Black Stockings: Lex Barker, Mamie Van Doren, Anne Bancroft and Marie Windsor /

Look, I don’t mean to overpraise what’s essentially a lurid minor exploitation b-movie. But in terms of low-brow fifties pulp thrills, the addictively trashy Girl in the Black Stockings veritably pulsates with prurience, misogyny, twisted psychology and an almost tangible revulsion towards sex. And it condenses its shock-by-shock twists into a taut 73-minutes. 

While vacationing at The Parry Lodge, a luxe mountain resort in Utah, hunky Los Angeles-based attorney Dave Hewson (Lex Barker) tentatively romances shy Beth Dixon (Anne Bancroft), the hotel’s switchboard operator. We first encounter the couple dancing by moonlight at an outdoor pool party. “Are you breathing this hard because of me or the altitude?” Hewson suavely inquires.  Their tryst is abruptly ruined when he lights a cigarette, and the flame illuminates a brutally slain female corpse in the bushes. The dead woman is Marsha Morgan – the local “good time girl” (prepare for lots of slut-shaming and blame-the-victim talk). Her throat has been slit – and her black stockings are in shreds! Suddenly, every guest and employee at Parry Lodge is a suspect – and what a menagerie of freaks they are! They’re all hiding sordid secrets, and they all seem guilty as hell. One thing’s for sure: as Hewson surmises, “We’re not dealing with an ordinary killer committing an ordinary crime!” 

The hotel’s proprietor is Edmund Parry (Ron Randell), an embittered misanthropic quadriplegic who viscerally loathes women in general and Marsha Morgan in particular. “I must say, the man-eating witch deserved it!” he’s apt to declare. “She was poison. Like a disease! A common creature whose every word, every breath, every gesture, was the show of an empty shallow strumpet. Miss Morgan was an example of a completely justifiable homicide!” Edmund is doted on by Julia (Marie Windsor), his devoted-to-the-point-of-incest sister. Does Edmund’s paralysis eliminate him as the killer? (It’s hinted his disability is psychosomatic). And what about the hotel’s knife-wielding, blood-splattered Native American handyman Joe (Larry Chance)? Due to an alcoholic black-out, he can’t account for his actions on the night of Marsha’s murder. Or bad boy ex-con sawmill employee Frankie (Gerald Frankie), who was sexually entangled with Marsha? Meanwhile, faded matinee idol Norman Grant (John Holland) is staying at Parry Lodge while preparing for a screen comeback, accompanied by his platinum blonde paramour Harriet Ames (Mamie Van Doren). As more dead bodies begin cropping up (cut to newspaper headline exclaiming “Maniac Strikes Again!”), it becomes apparent a serial killer is stalking this remote desert town. Who will be next? 

/ Edmund Parry (Ron Randell) /

/ Sheriff Jess Holmes (John Dehner)/

/ Joe (Larry Chance) /

/ Frankie (Gerald Frank). Who was the actor Gerald Frank? He looks like an escapee from Bob Mizer's Athletic Model Guild and fills-out a tight white t-shirt and pair of Levis beautifully! /

/ Harriet Ames (Mamie Van Doren) /

/ Dave Hewson (Lex Barker). Screen grabs via / 

The Girl in the Black Stockings certainly boasts a fun ensemble cast.  By this point, premium fifties beefcake leading man Lex Barker (a former husband of Lana Turner’s) had already portrayed Tarzan and was yet to feature in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960). Barker’s facial expression is permanently set to “pensive squint”, but we get copious glimpses of his wondrous physique, so who’s complaining? Today we remember Anne Bancroft as a heavy-weight credible “prestige” talent, but before she won her 1962 Best Actress Academy Award for The Miracle Worker, she paid her dues in b-movies like Don’t Bother to Knock (1952), Gorilla at Large (1954) and this one. Character actor John Dehner plays local sheriff Jess Holmes as if he’s wandered in from a Western. Tough-as-nails film noir broad Marie Windsor is cast against type in a virtuous “good girl” role. The Girl in the Black Stockings’ poster mischievously hints archetypal fifties bad girl and personification of moist womanly needs Mamie Van Doren is the film’s star (and the titular girl in the black stockings). In fact, her third-billed role as “the stunning blonde who lived for pleasure” is surprisingly small. Ultimately, it’s Ron Randell’s ferocious performance as the twisted-by-hatred Edmund that leaves the most indelible impression. 

/ Marie Windsor, Ron Rendell and Anne Bancroft /

/ Ron Rendell and Lex Barker /

/ John Dehner and Lex Barker /

Because it was made in ’56 (when the Motion Picture Production Code was still enforced), The Girl in the Black Stockings can only imply the violence and kink. All the murders occur off-screen, but the script compensates by having characters describe the mutilations in gruesome detail (“A girl was slaughtered and carved-up like a side of beef tonight!” “Those arms! Cut up like a jigsaw puzzle!”). Some particularly vivid moments: when one of the potential culprits is cornered by the cops at the lumber mill, he panics and falls into a buzz saw! And when a little girl discovers a dead body floating face down in the hotel’s pool, she giggles, “Look at that funny man!” Foreshadowing Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), William Castle’s Strait-Jacket (1964), eighties slasher films and even David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (think of Marsha Morgan as the equivalent of Laura Palmer), The Girl in the Black Stockings offers a tawdry good time.

Watch The Girl in the Black Stockings here:

Reflections on ... The Female Bunch (1969)

 

Recently watched: The Female Bunch (1969). Tagline: “They dare to do what other women only dream about!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend is accompanying me only semi-willingly). 

Naïve young Las Vegas cocktail waitress Sandy (Nesa Renet) is fed up with men and through with hurting. In fact, Sandy is so distraught after the failure of her romance with a lounge singer that she overdoses on pills. Luckily, she’s rescued by her glamorous blonde go-go dancer friend Libby (Regina Carrol). And Libby knows the solution to Sandy’s problems. Blindfolding her first, Libby drives Sandy to a secret, isolated Californian ranch, the premises of a cult-like all-female community of hardened man-hating feminists. “We are completely independent of men!” thunders Grace (Jennifer Bishop), the sadistic and alienated leader of these female supremacists. This being a late sixties sexploitation film, this pack of misandrists still resemble off-duty strippers or glamour models, complete with heavy dark eye make-up, ratted-up bouffant wiglets and cleavage-flaunting wardrobes straight out of a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogue. Once Sandy passes the terrifying initiation ritual (she’s buried alive in a coffin), she’s a fully paid-up member of “the sisterhood.” Before long, though, the in-over-her-head Sandy learns of the women’s criminal activity (they’re smuggling heroin over the Mexican border) and penchant for psychotic violence. Can she escape from their clutches in one piece? 

As this synopsis suggests, exploitation Western The Female Bunch shares DNA with Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) in which a trio of vicious go-go dancers embark on a homicidal crime spree in the desert. A z-grade grindhouse hack, director Al Adamson is no Meyer: his film-making is functional rather than dementedly inspired, but he does sustain an atmosphere of cruelty and sweaty urgency. Don’t expect much character development or motivation. For example, once the ultra-militant feminist amazons cross the Mexican border and start downing tequila in a taverna, within no time they are literally rolling around naked on the sawdust floor getting pawed by male admirers in an orgiastic bacchanal. So hetero-normative! So much for “man-hating!” Valerie Solanas would be vomiting with rage! (To be fair, only one of the gang members is overtly delineated as lesbian). 

In truth, the real-life behind-the-scenes stories surrounding The Female Bunch are considerably more interesting than anything that unfolds onscreen. The cast includes two genuine down-on-their-luck Hollywood stars presumably hungry for work (Lon Chaney Jr and Russ Tamblyn). Notoriously, The Female Bunch was filmed on location at the Spahn Ranch in the summer of 1969 - when it was inhabited by The Manson Family! Perhaps the most striking member of the female gang is statuesque redhead Sadie, played by Aleshia Brevard (billed here as A’lesha Lee). Brevard enjoyed a lengthy career on the margins of show business as a film, stage and TV actress, Playboy playmate, model and nightclub entertainer – and was a transgender pioneer. She kept her gender reassignment surgery a secret until 2001 when she released her autobiography The Woman I Was Not Born to Be. (She died in 2017 aged 79). As Libby, the magnetic Regina Carrol nails one of my favourite sixties bad girl looks (disheveled teased mane of peroxide hair, frosted white lipstick). Carrol was married to the director, and tragically died of cancer aged just 49.  And finally, Al Adamson was gruesomely murdered aged 66 in 1995 (his live-in handyman killed him after a dispute and “entombed” the corpse under cement where the jacuzzi used to be. The LA Times headline screamed: “Horror Film Director Found Slain, Buried Under Floor”).

 

The Female Bunch is free to view on Amazon Prime

Reflections on ... Point of Terror (1971)

 / Dyanne Thorne in Point of Terror (1971) /

Recently watched: Point of Terror (1971). Tagline: “Demons long locked in the depths of the mind come out to destroy the weak and believing!” I’m using this period of enforced social isolation to explore the weirder corners of YouTube for long forgotten and obscure movies. (My boyfriend is accompanying me only semi-willingly). 

Upon release this wildly tawdry exploitation curiosity was misleadingly and inexplicably promoted as a horror film (that tagline bears zero relation to anything that unfolds onscreen). And to this day Wikipedia describes it as a an “erotic drama horror film.” More accurately, Point of Terror is a shamelessly old-fashioned, down-and-dirty melodrama about adultery, murder and double crossing. The script - with its echoes of old film noirs like The Postman Always Rings Twice or Double Indemnity - could easily have been written three decades earlier but it’s been tweaked for the swingin’ permissive era and the sexploitation-hungry demands of the drive-in circuit. The tone is pure soap opera. Everyone drinks too much and snarls bitchy dialogue at each other. There’s hammy acting, chain-smoking, poolside lounging, flashes of nudity and bed-hopping. In summary: irresistible! 

Point of Terror’s campy lunacy is established immediately, with leading man Peter Carpenter wearing a fringed red ensemble, flailing around doing jazz hands while beltin’ out a musical number over the opening credits. Carpenter is muscular stud muffin Tony Trelos, a crotch-thrusting, hip-swiveling, tight-trousered and side-burned virile nightclub singer (think Vegas-era Elvis, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck or Tony Polar in Valley of the Dolls (1967)) employed at a Santa Monica cocktail lounge called The Lobster House. 

From there, Point of Terror smash cuts to Tony asleep on the beach, tormented by a nightmare. Screaming himself awake, Tony encounters buxotic bikini-clad MILF Andrea Hilliard (Dyanne Thorne). It turns out he’s trespassing on her private beach. Hungrily ogling his rippling bronzed torso, the cougar-ish Andrea assures him it’s fine. Even better: Andrea is rich (ker-ching!), co-owns a record label with her husband and is enthusiastic to mix business with pleasure and sign-up this hunky new discovery. But Andrea has baggage: she’s trapped in a bitterly dysfunctional marriage to her invalid husband Martin (Joel Marston). Here’s a sampling of their ugly arguments: Martin: “Dirty bitch! You drink too goddamn much! It’s because of your drinking I’m in this chair!” Andrea: “Martin, I have a headache this big with your name on it!” 

/ Tony and Andrea "meet cute" at the beach /

/ Turmoil! Joel Marston and Dyanne Thorne as the feuding Hilliards /

Tony invites Andrea to see him perform that night. (Note that The Lobster House’s stage is decorated with tinfoil - perhaps inspired by Warhol’s silver Factory?). “This is what I am and what I’ll always be / A drifter of the heart / Until love changes me!” Tony lustily wails, which makes Andrea go all misty and “tropical” downtown. (We always watch each of Tony’s cringe-worthy songs in their entirety! No cutting away!). In no time, the duo has embarked on an affair and begun production on Tony’s new album. (The “music industry” segments evoke Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Speaking of Meyer: Peter Carpenter made his film debut as a Canadian Royal Mounted Police officer seduced by Erica Gavin in Vixen (1968)). 

/ Tony rocks the Lobster House. The blonde woman in green with ringlets is Andrea /

/ In the recording studio with Tony and Andrea /

Interestingly, Tony is portrayed as a grasping, amoral anti-hero. He takes his long-suffering girlfriend Sally for granted and brazenly cheats on her, and it’s implied he has a history of exploiting gullible older women to further his show biz aspirations. “I want to be somebody. That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he explains for anyone who’s missed the point. “And I’ll do anything to get it. Anything!” Tony thinks he’s found his match in Andrea, but she is far more treacherous than he suspects! (To her credit, Sally warned, “She plays games, Tony! You’re just one of her toys!”). In no time, their relationship has soured (Tony: “Look, I’m not one of those beach bums you used to run around with!” Andrea: “No, they had a little class!”). But watch out, Tony: it turns out Andrea convinced Martin to kill his first wife so that they could be together. And another murder seems increasingly inevitable! 

/ Paula Mitchell as Sally in Point of Terror (1971) /

For trash enthusiasts, Point of Terror offers a cornucopia of riches. In an Eve Arden-style sidekick role, Leslie Simms (rocking a frosted blonde Tammy Wynette wig) steals every scene as Fran, Andrea’s perennially tipsy best friend. (I loved this exchange between the gal pals: Fran: “What’s he got to give you?” Andrea: “Kicks!” Fran: “He’s using you.” Andrea: “We’re using each other”). The gorgeously vivid nightclub lighting (heavy on the shocking pinks and greens) anticipates Italian giallo films like Suspiria (1977). The groovy early seventies clothing (Andrea’s crimplene dresses, Tony’s unbuttoned shirts exposing maximum tanned “chest meat”) are crimes against fashion. Andrea’s bouffant coiffures are like a tribute to the album covers of Nancy Sinatra (except when she opts for little girl pigtails, which are a tribute to Donna Douglas as Ellie May Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies). The sex scene in the swimming pool predicts the one in Showgirls (1995). 

/ Leslie Simms as Fran /

/ Thorne's baroque wedding cake hairstyles are worthy of comparison to Lana Turner's in The Big Cube (1969) /

Best of all is director Alex Nicol’s equal opportunity lechery. Sure, we get to see Dyanne Thorne’s boobs, but we also get multiple crotch shots of Peter Carpenter in spray-on skintight pants. (The frequently shirtless Carpenter resembles a vintage Playgirl centrefold come to life). Most memorably, the camera freezes on a lingering glimpse of Christopher’s pert naked ass in a shower scene. Eyeing him up and down, Andrea purrs, “The view from here is marvelous!” 

Point of Terror is viewable (for free!) on Amazon Prime. It's also available on Blu-ray and DVD via Vinegar Syndrome.

Reflections on ... Passport to Shame (1958)

Recently watched: Passport to Shame (1958), a tense, irresistibly trashy black-and-white British b-movie that aims to expose the scourge of prostitution rings in London. Tagline: “EXPOSED! The Shame of London Vice!” Alternate American title: Room 43. I was already enticed just by the RadioTimes description (“a cheap, tawdry and utterly fascinating piece of vintage sexploitation”) – and it didn’t disappoint!

You know Passport is going to be good when it commences with an unintentionally hilarious “what you’re about to see” public service announcement, with lawman Fabian of the Yard earnestly addressing the camera to warn us about this “blight” on society. (He employs the now rarely-heard word “seamy” – let’s bring that back!). The putative lead actress is Odile Versois as protagonist Malou, the naïve French girl unwittingly lured into white slavery. But Malou is a wan and tiresome one-dimensional victim (and saddled with a terrible ponytail wiglet).

Instead, Passport is comprehensively stolen by 26-year old Diana Dors - British cinema’s reigning bad girl - at her pouting sex goddess zenith in a secondary role as fellow prostitute Vicki. Dors is given a fabulous introduction on a busy street at night. The camera lovingly pans up from her stiletto heels, to her skin-tight white pencil skirt before settling on her platinum blonde mane. A male passerby grabs Vicki by the elbow to stop her from stepping off the curb into a puddle. “You almost wound up in the gutter!” he exclaims, and Dors gives him a knowing smirk before swiveling away. (An interesting visual shorthand: virtuous Malou typically wears full skirts with crinolines, while Dors and the other "working girls" hobble around in painted-on pencil skirts).

 

I’d assumed the action would occur in the vicinity of Soho, but in fact Passport’s locale is mainly situated around Bayswater. Anyway, Passport is swathed in moody film noir-style lighting and boasts some exceptional performances. Craggy-faced tough guy Eddie Considine is the Canadian cabdriver with a heart of gold determined to save Malou’s virtue. Brenda de Banzie as Aggie the brothel madam suggests a malevolent, fro frou and British-accented version of Ethel Mertz from I Love Lucy, and Herbert Lom exudes menace as sleazeball pimp Nick. (Boy, does he not appreciate being reminded of his humble origins in the East End!). Passport reaches a crazed climax when – in a moment worthy of Reefer Madness – an unsuspecting Malou smokes marijuana (she assumes it’s a regular cigarette) and proceeds to have a berserk German Expressionist nightmare.

/ Below: bonus cheesecake shot of Dors. In the film itself, we only get a fleeting glimpse of Vicki wearing this sexy lingerie but Passport to Shame's publicity material seemed to focus on it! /