Wonder Woman

When she stalks across a battlefield through whizzing bullets, implacable and unstoppable, you want to cheer and when she punches out a tank—she punches out a tank—you actually do.

Read the rest of the review of the totally not-crappy Wonder Woman at Vegas Seven.

Rogue One

The movie is full of drop-your-popcorn chase scenes and cheer-inducing fight sequences, but there’s also a distinct darkness to Rogue One: It makes The Empire Strikes Back look like Return of the Jedi.

Read the full rev    iew on Vegas Seven...

The Naked Kiss

 The Naked Kiss grabs you right away with one of the three best opening sequences in all of cinema -- the other two being Touch of Evil and Shakes the Clown. 

Yes, the legendary bald hooker beatdown. It's a doozy. And while it's over-the-top and attention-grabbing, it also sets the right tone. It tells you that The Naked Kiss is going to be very weird and also that our heroine is utterly fearless and, while her morals may be questionable, her ethics are incorruptible... 

It's an opening very typical of the film's director. Samuel Fuller may have used some of exploitation's tools, but it was always in service of a higher, idealistic message -- a stance that is something of a holdover from his early days as a tabloid crime reporter. Come for the leggy babes, explosions and fistfights; stay for the lessons about racial equality, women's rights, political corruption and social justice.

Kelly, played by Constance Towers, puts her hair back on and puts herself back together. We next see her three years later, getting off a Greyhound bus in Grantville. (This was back when people with monogrammed luggage took Greyhound buses.) Kelly is a "champagne saleswoman" now and a man quickly chats her up and samples her wares.

"Angel Foam goes down like liquid gold, and it comes on like slow dynamite.
For the man of taste... If you can afford it."

Unfortunately, said gentleman is Griff, a local cop. He has no problem with her hooking, just not in his precinct. He suggests that Kelly pack up her booze and her box and head for Del Mar Falls, "a wide open town." He even gives her a reference to the Del Mar whorehouse, Candy's, and offers to, erm, visit once she's settled there. She quotes Goethe and calls him a hypocrite. He has no idea what she's talking about on either count.

Then Kelly has some kind of Come Ta Jeezuz Moment and decides to give up hooking, rent a room from a lovable old lady and start working with disabled children. She dresses them up as pirates. It's insane. The weird dream sequences of kids running around shrieking "I have legs! I have legs!" and the surreal scene where they all sing...

Griff goes to find Kelly out at Candy's, where he knows all the girls and the Head Bitch in Charge is none other than Virginia Grey, pal of Lana Turner and  paramour of Clark Gable and a broad whose career extended from playing Little Eva in Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1927 to guesting on episodes of Love, American Style in 1973.

 

 

He doesn't find Kelly, but he does find Edy Williams (of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls) among the bon-bons. He apparently sent her to Candy's as well, after finding her in a bus station. So he's a cop, but he procures women for the whorehouse across the river. Nice.

When he does find Kelly in the little crip's ward, he is pissed. Yeah, most cops would be glad to see a hooker reform, but not this guy. I'm guessing he was supposed to get a finder's fee from Virginia Grey. And, of course, now Kelly is free to say no to him and his sorry-ass dick.

 "I'm trying your side of the fence now. Is there a law against it?
Is there anything wrong with that?"

 "You'll have a problems breaking in those little girls to walk the streets on crutches." [smack]

Kelly does eventually make it across the river, but not to work. Nope. It seems that a young nurse she works with is being lured into the world's oldest profession by Virginia Grey and Kelly. Ain't. Having. It.

She has a heart-to-heart with the lass about what hooking is really like (and it ain't Pretty Woman). Then she dresses up in her chic-est little black dress and heads out to kick ass and take names.

Meanwhile, we also meet Grant, scion of Grantville, boss of Grant Mill, benefactor of Grant Hospital, and buddy of Griff. International playboy, local philanthropist and all-around totally awesome guy. Really.

He takes a shine to Kelly and the two sit on his leopard-print sofa in his mansion, listening to Beethoven and watching home movies... not the kind you're thinking. Of Venice. Or at least the ones he shows Kelly are of Venice. I suspect there are others stashed somewhere, yet to be revealed. The man does have a leopard-print sofa, after all...

Griff wants to marry Kelly. But she hesitates, concerned about her, ah, prior career. She should be thinking more about the fact that he's a rich creep with a leopard-print sofa. And here comes the plot twist!

Having a dark past that keeps coming back to haunt her is another way in which Kelly is like one of those doomed, damaged noir heroes played by Robert Mitchum or John Garfield, especially when she says things like, "I was a broken down piece of machinery. Nothing but the buck, the bed and the bottle for the rest of my life." That's some Bukowski shit right there.

The Naked Kiss was made in 1964 and, while Kelly's maquillage, girdle and stilettoes plant her in the Kennedy era, the film, the script, and its independent, fearless, badass heroine could be moved ten years ahead to the days of Watergate without changing anything but the aesthetics. Kelly may be a whore, but she's the only person who won't sell out.

If i'm giving away less than i usually do about The Naked Kiss, it's because it's simply one of those movies that i think everyone needs to see. Let's just say that Kelly's ending is happy, although less "women's movie happy," than "hero of a western" happy. As well it should be: Kelly buys no one's bullshit. And she ain't going to sell it to us either.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

Much as i love Valley of the Dolls -- and i do, enough that i've shown it at screenings and based Oscar parties on it -- i love Beyond the Valley of the Dolls even more.

Largely because it is like the original but more. More bodacious ta-tas, more big hair, more fabulous outfits, more ridiculous dialogue, more bad acting, more drunk scenes, more kinky melodrama. And you read that right: Roger Ebert, beloved film critic co-wrote this masterpiece. And, trust me, it is a fucking masterpiece. If you have not seen this movie, your life is poorer for it.

In the fashion of the original Valley of the Dolls -- as well as other girl-power masterpieces such as How to Marry a Millionaire, The Heroic Trio and Sleater-Kinney, not to mention Charlie's Angels -- it's the story of three women and a shared goal.

This is Kelly, lead singer and guitarist. Like all lead singers/lead guitarists, she is narcissistic and unreliable and preoccupied with getting laid. She also has an inexplicable British accent that comes and goes. Kelly is played by Dolly Read, better known to Playboy readers as Miss May of 1966. She later married (and divorced and then married and divorced again) Dick Martin, of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.

This is Casey, the bass player. Like all bass players, she was hired for aesthetics/backstory rather than musicianship and digs whatever kind of downers you can give her, man. Casey is played by Cynthia Myers, best-known as Playboy's Miss December of 1967. I saw her on a Russ Meyer TV show several years ago and damn if she has not changed. Well-preserved and/or i want the name of her plastic surgeon.

 This is Petronella, aka Pet, the drummer. Like all drummers, she doesn't understand the concept of consequences and is mostly interested in getting high. Pet is played by Marcia McBroom. McBroom was the daughter of prominent Civil Rights activists, Stokely Carmichael was her cousin and Katherine Dunham and Duke Ellington were family friends. She was also in Jesus Christ Superstar, got over this shit and is now a history teacher in New York City.

At the opening of the movie, the ladies and their band, the Kelly Affair are playing some kind of school dance. For those of you who wonder how a Russ Meyer film passes the Bechdel test, it happens right here, where the girls spend about three minutes talking about hauling equipment and scoring dope.

But enough of that, time for the traveling across the map montage! The Kelly Affair and their manager, Harris, a sad sack who is also Kelly's boyfriend, head out for Los Angeles. Apparently Kelly's aunt is there and she owes Kelly some inheritance. Also L.A. is where it's at for musicians, man. Remember, this was before the internet, so people had relatives they hadn't communicated with in over a decade and there still was a music industry.

Kelly finds her Aunt Susan in her over-the-top 70's fashion studio -- an appropriate profession, given the series of sensational outfits in this flick. Despite the "This is not a sequel. There has never been anything like it" billing, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was originally intended as a sequel to Valley of the Dolls. The Aunt Susan character was actually Anne Welles and Barbara Parkins originally signed up to play her. Then things went south. I think someone read the script...

Anyway, Aunt Susan whisks Kelly off to a party thrown by music producer and Hollywood it-boy Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell, a sort of Phil Spector figure with a pseudo-Shakespearian line of patter. This party scene stands out as one of the best party scenes ever filmed.

 

Yup, you read that right. The second Austin Powers movie stole a good half-dozen lines from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls verbatim. I guess they figured Ebert wouldn't get noisy about asserting ownership. I would have though: That shit is timeless! Another steal? Look closely at Kelly's palazzo-pant jumpsuit. It's the same one worn by Sharon Tate in the original Valley of the Dolls.

So, the rest of the girls (and boy) show up, the band plays a song (with some help from the Strawberry Alarm Clock), Z-Man decides to sign them after changing their name to the Carrie Nations. Sad Sack is kind of upset, but is also easily distracted by porn star Ashley St. Ives, played by Edy Williams, aka Mrs. Russ Meyer.

Yup, another steal.

Also, if you have not yet adapted yourself to the unique rhythms and editing of a Russ Meyer film, please do so quickly. Everyone just sort of recites their dialogue and the camera cuts as quickly as possible from person to person to object to person to boobs to person to object to person to boobs to boobs to boobs. Meyer had a thing about actors blinking, so he would cut away every time anyone's eyes shut for even a fraction of a second.

So, the Carrie Nations' careers kick off in a big way. Kelly tosses Sad Sack aside professionally for Z-Man and personally for vapid gigolo Lance Rocke. Sad Sack takes up with  Porn Star. Casey is the victim of some really heavy-handed pickup attempts and takes up with predatory fashion designer Roxanne. Pet hooks up with a waiter/law student who knows where she can score some weed.

Sad Sack starts getting so hammered that he can't get it up anymore and Porn Star leaves him. Law Student is so busy studying that Pet starts making eyes at a Muhammad Ali knockoff. Kelly and Gigolo keep scheming to get a bigger chunk of the inheritance. Casey is popping dolls and huffing grass. What next, you ask? A lot of things. Amazing things. You'll have to watch the movie to find out, but i can promise you that all of this happens...

There's a peculiar irony that arch-chauvinist Russ Meyer wound up making a number of films that are now considered pseudo-feminist masterpieces. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is no Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill, but it does have three women who write their own songs, make their own decisions and bang whoever the hell they want. Sure, they're bubbleheaded hedonists, but no more so than anyone else in the film and less than most.

 Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was a critically panned flop when it came out, ending Russ Meyer's brief Hollywood majors career. However, it has since become one of the cult classics, an over the-top-piece of camp genius that must be beheld to be believed and whose influence can still be seen today.