Great Expectations (1946)

One of my favorite things about cinema is that movies are like cliff notes for the great literary works in history. Now, I like reading a great piece of literature as much as the next bibliophile. I've read a few great works in middle and high school including John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urberville, and Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. But I avoided some classic novels due to the language at the time or the size of the book (War and Peace). Novels like Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina or Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility or Alexander Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo I never found time to read. All three of those novels have been turned into numerous film and television adaptations that emphasis the key plot points and remove some of the excess from the stories. One of my favorite classics is Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. I read an abridged version of the Dickens Christmas tale in my youth and have watched a few film versions including the 1938 A CHRISTMAS CAROL with Reginald Owen as Scrooge and my favorite, the 1951 A CHRISTMAS CAROL with Alastair Sim as the definitive Ebenezer Scrooge. As for Dickens other famous novels like A Tale of Two Cities or Oliver Twist, I never did attempt to read those books. Thankfully, London and Hollywood saved moviegoers time by making film versions of most of Dickens novels. 

MGM Studios, the most prestigious of the major studios during the Golden Era of Hollywood, took the first crack at Dickens, releasing two big budget adaptations of Dickens novels in 1935 with DAVID COPPERFIELD (no, not the magician) directed by George Cukor (LITTLE WOMEN) and starring young Freddie Bartholomew in the title role and comedian W.C. Fields in a supporting role and A TALE OF TWO CITIES directed by Jack Conway and starring Ronald Coleman (A DOUBLE LIFE) and Elizabeth Allan. After World War II, England ran with the Dickens torch, making two excellent black and white Dickens adaptations of their own with GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1946) and OLIVER TWIST (1948), both directed by an up and coming film editor turned director named David Lean (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA). I watched both films about a year ago and found GREAT EXPECTATIONS the more exciting of the two.

I mentioned that A Christmas Carol was the only Dickens story I had read as a young person. However, after watching GREAT EXPECTATIONS and hearing the character names like Pip and Miss Havisham, somewhere in the dark recess of my brain I feel like I did read Great Expectations in school. Besides those two names, I don't recall a single thing about the book. Did I read it? Did a character from another book I read talk about Great Expectations and that filtered into my head? I may be imagining it all. I'm sure I would have remembered the atmospheric opening sequence in GREAT EXPECTATIONS with Young Pip in the church cemetery visiting his parents graves, the wind howling and the tree branches creaking as he runs into escaped convict Magwitch. It's a fantastic opening and I'm sure taken directly from the novel. If I had read that beginning (or any of the book), I do not recall it. 

Based on the novel by Charles Dickens, adapted by a cadre of screenwriters including David Lean, Ronald Neame (also the producer), Anthony Havelock-Allan, Kay Walsh (Lean's wife), and Cecil McGivern and directed by David Lean, GREAT EXPECTATIONS begins in the early 1800s on the marshes of Kent, England. Young Pip (Anthony Wager), an orphan visits his parents graves at a distant churchyard on a cold, blustery day. About to head home, Pip encounters an escaped convict from a nearby "hulk" or prison ship named Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie). Magwitch orders Pip to bring him a file to escape his chains and some food for him or else. Pip gives the convict his word and runs home to his guardians, the gentle blacksmith Joe Gargery (Bernard Miles) and his overbearing wife Mrs. Joe (Freda Jackson) who whips Pip for disappearing without telling her. They hear cannon fire in the distance, signifying a convict has escaped the "hulks." Pip nicks a file and a meat pie and returns to the churchyard to meet Magwitch. Pip comes across a second convict (George Hayes) with a scar who flees upon seeing Pip. Magwitch thanks Pip for the file and food. Pip returns home for dinner where the Gargery's entertain Uncle Pumblechook (Hay Petrie). Just as Mrs. Joe discovers her meat pie missing, the King's Soldiers show up, looking for the escaped convicts. Joe, Pip, and Pumblechook follow the soldiers who catch Magwitch and the second convict in the mud flats. As Magwitch is taken away back to the prison ship, he returns the favor to Pip, claiming he stole the file and meat pie from Joe's house, saving Pip from the wrath of Mrs. Joe.

A year passes. Uncle Pumblechook informs the Gargery's that the rich, eccentric Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) requests Pip's presence. At her mansion, they're greeted by the young, pretty Estella (a young Jean Simmons) who takes only Pip to meet Miss Havisham. The elder woman wants Pip to keep her company and play cards with her adopted daughter Estella. Estella tortures Pip, teasing him one moment and allowing Pip to kiss her on the cheek the next. Pip falls in love with Estella. On Miss Havisham's birthday, Pip meets the old woman's relatives, the Pocket family. A young, lanky boy in her garden, Herbert Pocket (John Forrest) challenges Pip to a fight. Having never fought before, Pip knocks Herbert down twice. Pip continues to visit Miss Havisham and Estella. Pip tells Miss Havisham he wishes to become a gentleman, to climb up from his humble origins. Three months later, Mrs. Joe dies. Pip turns fourteen. It's time for Pip to begin his blacksmith apprenticeship with Joe. Miss  Havisham informs Pip that Estella is leaving for France for her education. Pip kisses Estella one more time before they part. Pip's boyhood has come to an end.

After six years as a blacksmith alongside Joe, Pip (now played by John Mills) is visited by the gregarious Mr. Jaggers (Francis L. Sullivan), a lawyer from London. Jaggers informs Pip a mysterious, unknown benefactor has bequeathed a tidy sum of money to Pip to travel to London and learn to become a "gentleman." The benefactor wishes to be anonymous until the right time to reveal themselves. "Pip! A young gentleman of great expectations," exclaims Joe Gargery. Before heading to London, Pip visits Miss Havisham to tell her the good news. Miss Havisham already knows (Jaggers is her lawyer as well). Pip travels to London to begin his new adventure. He goes to Jaggers office where Mr. Wemmick (Ivor Barnard) takes Pip to the Barnards Inn where he will board with Herbert Pocket (Alec Guinness), the lanky boy he boxed with as a kid. Herbert reveals more about Miss Havisham as he teaches Pip manners he'll need to improve on. Pip learns dancing, fencing, and boxing. Pip turns 21. Jaggers scolds Pip for his spending. Jaggers still won't reveal who Pip's benefactor is. Joe the blacksmith comes to London to visit Pip. Joe looks out of place and Pip knows it. "In trying to become a gentleman," Pip laments, "I had succeeded in becoming a snob." Joe tells Pip that Miss Havisham wishes to see him.

Pip returns to Kent to visit Miss Havisham and finds a grown up Estella (Valerie Hobson) is back from Europe. Miss Havisham wants Pip to love Estella. Estella comes to London where she soon accumulates many admirers including Bentley Drummle (Torin Thatcher), making Pip jealous. On a stormy night, a stranger wearing an eye patch appears at Pip's door. The stranger is the convict Abel Magwitch who we learn was shipped off to Australia where he became a wealthy sheep farmer. Magwitch is Pip's mysterious benefactor, repaying Pip for his kindness on the marshes many years past, thinking of Pip as his own son after he and his wife gave up their child to adoption during hard times. Pip visits Jaggers to tell him the news. Jaggers doesn't want to know. Magwitch is still wanted as a criminal in England and has enemies who wish him hanged. Pip vows to help Magwitch get out of the country. Pip visits Estella one last time at Miss Havisham's. He professes his love to Estella. She reveals she's engaged to Bentley. Miss  Havisham realizes she's pointed Estella to the wrong man. As Miss Havisham rises from her chair, her dress brushes the fireplace and catches on fire. Pip tries to save her but he's too late. In GREAT EXPECTATIONS climax, Pip returns to London where he and Herbert try to sneak Magwitch onto a steamer, away from his enemies and Pip learns a secret about Estella that will change their lives forever. 

One of the reasons I love A CHRISTMAS CAROL is its supernatural element (three ghosts visiting Scrooge on Christmas Eve).  GREAT EXPECTATIONS is not a supernatural story but it has ghost story moments. The opening sequence as Young Pip visits his parents graves at a spooky coastal church showcases Lean's directorial expertise. Lean's use of sound, the wind whipping through the graveyard, the branches scraping each other, reaching out like arms as Pip runs into the massive escaped convict Magwitch is worthy of any Val Lewton (ISLE OF DEAD) horror film. Miss Havisham's house in Kent is equivalent to a haunted mansion. Its interior decaying, filled with cobwebs, curtains shuttered to keep out any sunlight, the clock tower's hands stuck for eternity at one fateful hour and minute. Miss Havisham is like a ghost, dressed in translucent white, her hair a fright. She's alive on the outside but mostly dead inside after her fiance left her at the altar the day of her wedding years before. Her dining room remains frozen in time, decorated for the wedding reception that never came to pass.

Dickens had a penchant for creating characters that were so detailed and memorable that they literally jumped from the page into your imagination. Lean and his production crew accomplish the impossible in GREAT EXPECTATIONS as every actor in the film looks the embodiment of a Dickens character. The Young Pip and Young Estella (played by Anthony Wager and Jean Simmons) seamlessly become their adult versions played by John Mills and Valerie Hobson. Even the young, skinny Herbert Pocket (John Forrest) uncannily resembles Alec Guinness who plays the adult Herbert Pocket. From Pip's guardians, the kind and humble blacksmith Joe Gargery (Bernard Miles) and his polar opposite wife the mean spirited Mrs. Joe Gargery (Freda Jackson) to the colossal London lawyer Mr. Jaggers (Francis L. Sullivan) and the equally intimidating convict Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie) to the affluent spinster Miss Havisham (Martita Hunt) still wearing the wedding dress from the wedding she never had, Lean and his writers create vivid, unforgettable cinematic versions of the characters Dickens dreamed up in 1861 when his novel was published.

Dickens plots can be intricate and complicated with characters appearing early in the story and reappearing at various times throughout. The escaped convict Magwitch, head shaven, scares Young Pip and the audience at the beginning of GREAT EXPECTATIONS before he's recaptured. We think we'll never see him again as he's rowed back to the moored prison ship. We're teased with a red herring that Miss Havisham is Pip's secret benefactor until Magwitch shows up years later at Pip's room on a stormy night. He now has long white hair and an eyepatch. Magwitch became wealthy as a sheep farmer when he was exiled to the penal country of Australia and returned Pip's kindness that blustery day by paying for Pip to become a gentleman. Young Pip first casts eyes on the lawyer Mr. Jaggers at Miss Havisham's gloomy home. They exchange no words. Jaggers will later show up in young adult Pip's life with the opportunity of a lifetime, courtesy of an unknown benefactor. It turns out Jaggers is the lawyer for both Miss Havisham and Magwitch. Jaggers is the keeper of many secrets that Pip will slowly uncover including (SPOILER ALERT) that Estella was adopted by Miss Havisham from Magwitch and his wife Molly who Jaggers got acquitted from a murder charge. 

One of my pleasant surprises watching GREAT EXPECTATIONS was the unexpected delight discovering two British actresses I had only seen previously in one of my favorite vampire films of all time both have noteworthy roles in GREAT EXPECTATIONS. In the Hammer film BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960) directed by Terence Fisher, Martita Hunt who plays Miss Havisham in GREAT EXPECTATIONS appears as Baroness Meinster, a Transylvanian version of Havisham dealing with her son Baron Meinster (David Peel) who happens to be a vampire. Freda Jackson who dominates her few scenes in GREAT EXPECATIONS as Mrs. Joe Gargery plays opposite Hunt as the Baroness's servant Greta (complete with a maniacal cackle). Hunt and Jackson bring cache to BRIDES OF DRACULA. Dickens stories are usually male heavy but Hunt and Jackson make memorable and unforgettable female characters in GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Hunt is especially good as the jilted Miss Havisham, part matchmaker, part marionette as she influences both Pip and Estella. 

Some of Lean and his production team's casting choices for GREAT EXPECTATIONS are no brainers as several actors had played their roles in earlier stage productions of the Dickens tale. Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham and Alec Guinness as Herbert Pocket had performed the same roles in stage versions of Great Expectations. Francis L. Sullivan had played Jaggers previously in an earlier 1934 version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS directed by Stuart Walker. For Alec Guinness, GREAT EXPECTATIONS was the beginning of a long, fruitful collaboration with director David Lean including one of Guinness's finest performances as the unbending British Colonel Nicholson in Lean's WWII adventure film A BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (1957). In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Guinness shows off his comedic skills as Pip's roommate and etiquette teacher Herbert Pocket. Herbert was the boy Estella teased and discarded first before moving on to Pip. Herbert becomes Pip's only true friend in London. 

A Tale of Two Young Careers. Child actors who morph into adult characters (and different actors) is a tricky balance that can make a film sink or soar. GREAT EXPECTATIONS gets it right with both Anthony Wager as Young Pip and Jean Simmons as Young Estella. Wager's Pip is the embodiment of most young Dickens boy characters. Loyal, curious, naive, and ultimately, brave, Wager's Pip is the anchor for the first third of GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Chosen by director Lean out of 700 applicants for the role, Wager's career sadly never took off (he grew too tall after GREAT EXPECTATIONS to play any more child roles). Wager worked in television in Australia in the late 1960s. Bad health led to Wager's early death in 1990 at the age of 58. 

Young Jean Simmons career trajectory was the opposite of  Wager's. After GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Simmons had significant roles in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) starring Deborah Kerr and she played Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's version of HAMLET (1948). Hollywood came calling and Simmons obliged starring in Henry Koster's biblical drama THE ROBE (1953) with Richard Burton and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's musical GUYS AND DOLLS (1955) with Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra. Simmons became a major Hollywood star. In Simmons early roles like Estella in GREAT EXPECATIONS, she exhibited a provocative sexuality for a young female character coming of age. Young Estella teases and tortures Young Pip with her feminine guiles, goaded by Miss Havisham who had been abandoned herself as a young woman on her wedding day.

The actors who play the adult versions of Pip and Estella are equally good with John Mills slightly more memorable as Pip than Valerie Hobson's subdued and mercurial Estella (Hobson is still beautiful and alluring). Mills was the British equivalent of Gary Cooper or Tom Hanks, a versatile actor who was comfortable in a variety of different genres from comedy in David Lean's HOBSON'S CHOICE (1954) to military drama in Sidney Gilliat's WATERLOO ROAD (1945) to adventure in Ken Annakin's SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON (1960). In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Mills effortlessly picks up where young Wager left off in the story as Pip's life changes forever with a secret benefactor's generosity. Mills expertly conveys Pip's journey from humble blacksmith in Kent to aspiring "gentleman" in London.

Valerie Hobson career started off in Hollywood and she captured my attention with her lustrous dark hair and doe eyes in two Universal horror films as Dr. Frankenstein's fiancee Elizabeth in James Whale's BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) and as the werewolf's wife in Stuart Walker's WEREWOLF OF LONDON (also 1935). Hobson returned to her native England in the 1940s and appeared in some excellent British films including Robert Hamer's dark comedy KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949) with Alec Guinness and Anthony Pelissier's fantasy drama THE ROCKING HORSE WINNER (also 1949) co-starring John Mills. In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Hobson's performance as Estella is muted. She's beautiful but a bit cold. She's a pawn for Miss Havisham to groom and manipulate. Still, what a leap for Hobson from scream queen ingenue in her early horror film days to one of Britain's leading ladies in the late 1940s.

One can't praise the cast of GREAT EXPECTATIONS without mentioning two supporting actor giants (literally) whose performances and appearance are straight out of Dickens casting.  With his bulldog jowls and mutton chop sideburns, Francis L. Sullivan is perfect as the solicitor Mr. Jaggers. Jaggers knows all the story's secrets, keeping them close to his vest, allowing Pip to discover them over time as he matures. Sullivan was so authentic as a Dickens character that he appeared in three other film adaptations of Dickens novels including playing Mr. Jaggers previously in an earlier version in Universal's attempt at GREAT EXPECTATIONS in 1934.  Sullivan co-starred in Stuart Walker's MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD (also 1934), an adaptation of Dickens unfinished novel starring Claude Rains and his GREAT EXPECTATIONS co-star Valerie Hobson and Sullivan was in David Lean's second Dickens adaptation OLIVER TWIST (1948) as Mr. Bumble. 

For the imposing Finlay Currie (at six feet two inches tall) who plays Magwitch, GREAT EXPECTATIONS kick started a long career for the Scottish actor with primarily supporting and bit roles in numerous period films including Henry Hathaway's THE BLACK ROSE (1950), Richard Thorpe's IVANHOE (1952), and William Wyler's biblical epic BEN HUR (1959). Currie's Magwitch is the most surprising character in GREAT EXPECTATIONS. At first, Magwitch comes off as sadistic and cruel as the desperate, escaped convict.  We think we'll never see him again when he's captured. When Magwitch turns up later in the film, he's a completely different person. He's Pip's benevolent angel, a wealthy sheep farmer secretly rewarding Pip for Pip's generosity towards him years earlier. Currie brings pathos to the one eyed Magwitch. 

Some final GREAT EXPECATIONS trivia tidbits. Actress Valerie Hobson's first husband Anthony Havelock-Allan was a co-writer and one of the producers on GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Director David Lean's wife Kay Walsh also was a co-writer on the film. Later in life, Hobson was married to British politician John Profumo who had an extramarital affair with a 19 year old model Christine Keeler in 1961 and was forced to step down from his political career. This incident was later made into a 1989 film called SCANDAL starring Ian McKellen, John Hurt, and Joanne Whalley. Similar to Miss Havisham catching on fire toward the end of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, actress Jean Simmons apron caught fire during a scene and Anthony Wagers put the fire out. Lastly, having made two of the best film versions of Charles Dickens novels with GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST, David Lean claimed he had never read a Dickens novel before working on the film.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS is a great film adapted from a great novel by Charles Dickens. The film has the benefit of an up and coming director in David Lean becoming more confident in his craft. It has a cast that included three actors who had played their characters previously either on the stage or an earlier film version and knew their roles inside and out. GREAT EXPECTATIONS is a fine example of taking the best and most important parts from the novel and shaping it into a tight, exhilarating film that feels like you are watching a novel. If I have built up your expectations for GREAT EXPECTATIONS than guilty as charged. 

Pillow Talk (1959)

What draws audiences to like certain cinematic couples on the silver screen and avoid other cinematic couples? CRAZYFILMGUY will always watch any film with cinematic couples like Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (9 films together) or Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (4 films together) or even Robert Redford and Jane Fonda (4 films together). Rock Hudson and Doris Day appeared in 3 films together and I have never seen one of them. I always found Hudson dull (although there are two Hudson films where I find him very good) and Day too All-American squeaky clean for my taste. Hudson and Day were equally good looking, neither one less attractive than the other like say Hepburn and Tracy or  Bacall and Bogart. But millions of moviegoers  did like the pairing of Hudson and Day. If you were to ask movie fans what is their favorite of the three Hudson/Day films, the universal answer would be their first pairing, Michael Gordon's sophisticated romantic sex comedy PILLOW TALK (1959).

Growing up, I had always known comedies to be in black and white. The films of silent comedians Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. Black and white. The Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and Abbott and Costello.  Black and white. Screwball comedies like Howard Hawks BRINGING UP BABY (1933), Ernst Lubitsch's NINOTCHKA (1939), and George Cukor's THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940). Black and white. After the darkness of World War II, film comedies needed a face lift. With television emerging as the new visual medium in the 1950s, motion pictures including comedies needed to distinguish themselves from the small black and white screens in people's living rooms. Wide screen CinemaScope was one answer. The other was making films in bright, vivid color. PILLOW TALK chose both. 

PILLOW TALK is the first of three films Hudson and Day made together. The other two are Delbert Mann's LOVER COME BACK (1961) and Norman Jewison's SEND ME NO FLOWERS (1964) both with PILLOW TALK co-star and good luck charm Tony Randall along for those two as well. My pre-conceived bias with PILLOW TALK was two movie stars who didn't dazzle me and it's television like interiors of bedrooms, offices, and clubs. Having now watched PILLOW TALK, director Gordon manages to make Doris Day sexy, he makes Rock Hudson funny, and he uses split screens and even three screens to liven up the visuals and spice up the sex appeal of this supposed sex comedy. 

With a screenplay by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin based on a story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene and directed by Michael Gordon (CYRANO DE BERGERAC), PILLOW TALK introduces us to our two protagonists right away: Brad Allen (Rock Hudson), a playboy songwriter and Jan Morrow (Doris Day), a successful interior decorator, both living in New York City and both sharing a telephone party line. Brad monopolizes the party line, chatting with various girlfriends, singing songs to them he's writing, inserting the girlfriend's name in the song, frustrating Jan who needs her phone for business. Jan complains to Mr. Conrad (Hayden Rorke) with the phone company about Brad and tries to get a private phone line with little success. As she leaves the phone company building, Jan runs into her wealthy client Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall) out on the street who's smitten with Jan and wants to marry her. Jan's currently decorating Jonathan's office. Jan delicately brushes Jonathan's advances away and the new sports car he tries to give her.

It turns out Jonathan is financing a Broadway musical and his college buddy is Brad who's providing the songs for the show. Jonathan stops by Brad's apartment to check on Brad's progress. Jonathan laments about his unrequited love with Jan who Brad realizes is his party line adversary. Brad's curious what Jan looks like and calls her with an offer to meet for coffee. Jan declines as she's attending an open house for another client of hers Mrs. Walters (Lee Patrick). As Jan prepares to leave the open house, Mrs. Walters son Tony Walters (Nick Adams), home from college at Harvard, offers to drive Jan home. The young Nick tries to make out with Jan who rejects his advances. Jan agrees to go to the Copa del Rio nightclub for one drink with Tony. Tony gets drunk. Sitting behind Jan and Tony is Brad with his date Marie (Julie Meade). Brad overhears Jan and realizes it's his party line neighbor. Brad comes to her rescue, pretending to be a Texas rancher named Rex Stetson. He sends Tony home in a taxi and squeezes into Tony's small sports car to take Jan home.

Jan is charmed with Rex (really Brad) and invites him in for coffee which Brad/Rex politely refuses. Jan gives him her phone number before he leaves. Rex calls later to make a date with Jan then switches to Brad pretending to cut in who tries to get Jan to break the date with no success. Brad/Rex takes Jan out on the town that includes a carriage ride thru Central Park. At dinner, Brad sees Jonathan arrive at the coat check in. Afraid Jonathan will give away his identity, Brad scares Jonathan away before he sees Jan. The next day at Jonathan's office, Jan breaks a date with Jonathan so she can see Rex/Brad which makes Jonathan angry. Brad comes to Jonathan's office to deliver his songs, almost running into Jan as she leaves, hiding in an OB/GYN office until she's gone. Jonathan hires a private detective to watch Jan's front door to find out who she's seeing. The detective returns to Jonathan with a photo of Brad leaving her apartment. 

At their next date, Brad/Rex and Jan have their first kiss. When Jan goes to the powder room, Jonathan shows up and tells Brad to either break up with Jan or Jonathan will reveal to Jan who Rex really is. Jonathan orders Brad to his Connecticut summer home to finish writing the songs for their musical. Jonathan departs. Jan returns and Brad/Rex tells Jan to go home and pack. He's going to take her away for the weekend. Jonathan watches Brad drive off alone, convinced he's ended the Rex/Jan relationship. Brad picks up Jan and they drive off. Jonathan goes to check on Jan and discovers she's left for Connecticut. Brad  has double crossed him. At the summer house, Jan finds Brad's music and realizes Rex is Brad. Jonathan shows up and brings a crying Jan back to New York. Brad returns to New York and realizes he's in love with Jan. Brad tries to contact Jan thru her feisty, hard drinking cleaning lady Alma (Thelma Ritter). Alma suggests Brad hire Jan to decorate his apartment. Jan takes the job so she can get back at Brad, turning his place into a garish bachelor pad. When Brad sees what she's done, he storms over to her apartment and brings her back to his place where the two of them make up.

As television became the dominant medium in the 1950s, TV shows hid sex behind the bedroom doors. Married couples slept in separate beds. Storks brought a new baby to a family not the mother. Movies and cinema were supposed to be able to address sex more explicitly than television. It took Marilyn Monroe in Billy Wilder's comedy THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH (1955) to throw down the gauntlet to be sexy out in the open (remember the wind from the subway blowing Monroe's dress up in the air). My initial reservations with PILLOW TALK was it was a big budget, glossy version of a 1950s television sitcom with a WASPish leading man and woman. PILLOW TALK proclaims itself to be a sex comedy. Surprisingly, PILLOW TALK does address sex, both in the dialogue and visually albeit in fairly chaste terms. It was considered daring in 1959. 

Early in PILLOW TALK, Brad and Jan argue with each other on their shared party telephone line. Brad tells Jan she's having "bedroom problems", implying she's single, has no boyfriend, and she not having any sex. Jan explodes over Brad's insinuation...but it's true. PILLOW TALK uses split screens for foreplay as our lovers flirt without ever having to be in the bedroom or nightclub together. PILLOW TALK'S most famous and risque scene (not really) is a split screen sequence with Brad as Rex and Jan chatting with each other while naked in separate bathtubs. Unknowingly, Brad and Jan play footsies, putting their soapy feet up to the upper edge of their frame as if they're touching one another. It's a visually funny moment and the closest we'll get to Brad and Jan making love on screen. In PILLOW TALK'S finale, Brad goes to Jan's apartment and literally carries Jan back to his apartment where they make up (and off screen, make love). Nine months later, Brad and Jan are married and she's expecting a baby. 

I push aside PILLOW TALK as not a very important film in my pantheon of films. For Rock Hudson and Doris Day, PILLOW TALK was a turning point in their careers thanks to the efforts of director Gordon and producer Ross Hunter. Hudson was coming off a big budget failure in Charles Vidor's A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1957) with Jennifer Jones based on the Ernest Hemingway novel and produced by David O. Selznick. Hudson had never done a comedy. PILLOW TALK proved that leading man Hudson was pretty good at it. Hudson's Brad Allen starts out in the film as conceited and shallow, a songwriting womanizer playing the field with various foreign socialites and actresses. When Brad lays eyes on Jan Morrow, the woman he's been fighting with on their shared party telephone line, he finds a new challenge that leads to him falling in love with her but having to pretend not to be her sworn enemy Brad Allen.

Instead, Hudson has the opportunity to play not one but two characters in PILLOW TALK which he does adroitly. He's Brad the songwriter who Jan despises (but has only talked to and never seen) and he's alter ego, the fictional fish out of water Texas rancher in New York Rex Stetson who Jan adores and falls in love with. Switching between characters gives Hudson some fine comic moments which he excels at. The split screens and party line allow Brad to hold off revealing his true identity to Jan until the third act. Hudson's star appeal climbed from small supporting parts in the early 1950s to leading roles in Douglas Sirk's WRITTEN ON THE WIND (1956) with Lauren Bacall and George Stevens epic western GIANT (also 1956) with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. My personal favorite Rock Hudson performances are in Anthony Mann's western BEND IN THE RIVER (1952) with James Stewart and John Frankenheimer's creepy sci-fi thriller SECONDS (1966). 

As much as Doris Day was a talented singer/actress and I'm sure a very nice person, I just found her too sweet and plain.  Apparently producer Ross Hunter felt so too and was determined to change Day's image for PILLOW TALK, bringing out the sexier side of Day with multiple sexy dresses and a few titillating scenes like college boy Tony Walters trying to make out with her in his sport car. Like Hudson, Day seems a natural with comedy and the verbal foreplay, tame as it may be, between Brad and Jan raises PILLOW TALK to the level of a genuine sex comedy. For a romantic comedy to work, chemistry between the two leads is essential and Hudson and Day pull it off (they were very good friends off-screen as well). In Alfred Hitchcock's THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH (1956), Day came off as a frustrated, boring wife.  In PILLOW TALK, Day gets to cut loose and show her wilder side even if it takes a little while for her to get there.

The success of PILLOW TALK would lead to Hudson and Day making two more films together.  I may not be Doris Day's biggest fan but a glance at her filmography (and a short piece she narrated about herself on Turner Classic Movies that I recently saw) highlights that Doris Day worked with many of the best leading men in Hollywood in the 1950s including Ronald Reagan, Gordon McRae, Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, James Stewart, Clark Gable, Richard Widmark, Jack Lemmon, and David Niven. CRAZYFILMGUY may need to give actress Doris Day and some of her films another look. 

One can't discuss the Rock Hudson/Doris Day films like PILLOW TALK without the third piece to their success: Tony Randall. I grew up watching Tony Randall as the fastidious Felix Unger on the television version of THE ODD COUPLE (1970-1975) opposite Jack Klugman's slovenly Oscar Madison (Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau appeared in the film version) based on the Neil Simon play. Little did I know a decade earlier, Randall was playing the comedic third wheel for Hudson/Day films. In PILLOW TALK, Randall's affluent Jonathan Forbes is the perfect foil. He's in love with Jan, courting her as she remodels his office. Jan only wants a platonic relationship. Jonathan also happens to be an old college buddy and current best friend to Brad who's writing Broadway songs for a musical Jonathan is producing. Brad also is secretly trying to steal Jonathan's object of desire. Randall makes Jonathan a bit of a cad yet enjoyable enough that we still like him even when we celebrate Brad getting Jan instead of him. One of Randall's best loved films is George Pal's fantasy 7 FACES OF DR. LAO (1964) in which Randall plays seven different characters ala Peter Sellers.

A good comedy needs memorable supporting characters and PILLOW TALK provides that. There may not be a better actress to play housekeepers than Thelma Ritter (who definitely could play other roles). Ritter was memorable as James Stewart's housekeeper Stella in Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW (1954). In PILLOW TALK, Ritter is Day's booze drinking maid Alma and has a running gag with the elevator in Day's apartment building. Ritter would be nominated for six Best Supporting Actress Academy Awards and never won once (Deborah Kerr shares that honor for Best Actress nominations). Nick Adams (MISTER ROBERTS) who plays Tony Walters, the young Lothario who takes Jan home from a client's open house and tries to seduce her in PILLOW TALK was cut in the James Dean looks vein (and even friends with Dean) but not quite Dean's caliber of fame. Still, Adams has some funny, awkward moments as his seduction with Day fails. Tragically, Adams died of an accidental overdose in 1968. Two of my favorite television actors have small parts in PILLOW TALK. Hayden Rorke who plays telephone company manager Mr. Conrad was a regular on TVs I DREAM OF JEANIE from 1965-1970) as the suspicious Dr. Bellows. And the recognizable William Schallert (THE PATTY DUKE SHOW) has a small role as a hotel clerk.

Director Michael Gordon makes some nice creative choices with PILLOW TALK.  The use of split screens fits in well with the plot device that our romantic leads share a party line. Gordon can have Brad and Jan bicker with each other on the phone and we see both of them at the same time. When Brad pretends to be Rex Stetson when he meets Jan in person, she has no idea Rex is Brad thanks to the party line. Another nice touch is both characters having inner monologues, a device for romantic comedies where we hear their thoughts. Gordon switches to inner monologues when both characters are together like in a car, trying to figure out their next move in their relationship. Gordon is a director that you (and I) may not have heard of before. Gordon's most famous film before PILLOW TALK was CYRANO DE BERGERAC (1950) with Jose Ferrer in his Academy Award winning performance as the long nosed poet/swordsman. Gordon got caught up in the McCarthy anti-Communist hysteria where he was blacklisted and moved to Australia. After making one film Down Under, Gordon returned to the U.S. as McCarthyism faded. PILLOW TALK would be his first and best post blacklist film. 

Some final PILLOW TALK trivia tidbits. Doris Day and Thelma Ritter were both nominated for Academy Awards for PILLOW TALK. Neither won. The film would win one Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin based on a story by Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene. Many movie fans (myself included when I was in high school) thought that Rock Hudson was straight and Tony Randall was gay. In reality, Hudson was a closet gay man and Randall was straight. Director Michael Gordon's grandchild is actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (INCEPTION, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES). To help with Doris Day's transformation into a sex symbol for PILLOW TALK, the filmmakers hired famed costume designer Jean Louis (GILDA) who designed 24 costumes for Day for the film.

PILLOW TALK still will not make my Top Ten favorite films of all kind.  But the comedy was better than I expected, eliciting more belly laughs from me than I expected. It draws from Shakespeare plots with one of its lead characters Brad Allen pretending to be someone else to win the affection of the woman he loves who hates his original self. What I didn't realize was that PILLOW TALK helped to change both Rock Hudson and  Doris Day's career paths, showing a new side of them that audiences liked.  Beloved by millions, PILLOW TALK can add CRAZYFILMGUY as a begrudging fan of this so-called sex comedy from the late 1950s. 

Frenzy (1972)

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, filmmakers began pushing the boundaries of sex and violence in mainstream cinema as censorship began to relax and the Hayes Code faded away with films like Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (1969), Mike Nichols's CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (1971), Peckinpah's STRAW DOGS (1971), Stanley Kubrick's A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) and John Boorman's DELIVERANCE (1972).  These films were visceral, hypnotic, and controversial. Whether it was stylized violence or frank sexual conversations, or even images of rape, audiences were both fascinated and repelled by these bold movies . So when director Alfred Hitchcock, famous for his classic studio thrillers released his first film in this brave new cinema world of the 1970s with FRENZY (1972), what did audiences expect from the director who originally pushed the boundaries of cinema by killing a naked Janet Leigh in a shower without ever showing the knife touch her body in PSYCHO (1960)?

The answer is Hitchcock was up to the challenge and ready to adapt to the new celluloid landscape. After the success and shock of Hitchcock's PSYCHO followed by his apocalyptic horror film THE BIRDS (1963), the remainder of the 1960s was a disappointment for the acclaimed British director. Hollywood was changing before Hitchcock's eyes. His favorite actors were becoming to old to be leading men (James Stewart, Cary Grant) and his favorite actress was retiring to become princess of a tiny European nation (Grace Kelly). Hitchcock tried the new generation of Hollywood stars like Sean Connery in MARNIE (1964) and Paul Newman and Julie Andrews in TORN CURTAIN (1966) with mediocre results. He wrapped up the 1960s with the tepid political thriller TOPAZ (1969). Was it time for the Master of Suspense to retire?  Hitchcock's answer was a resounding no. 

With FRENZY, Hitchcock rediscovered his roots in more ways than one while staying relevant with the current trend in films showing explicit violence and nudity. FRENZY was a return to his birthplace, Hitchcock's first project filmed entirely on location in his home country of England since STAGE FRIGHT (1950). The story was a variation of the Jack the Ripper story that was the basis for Hitchcock's first film, THE LODGER (1927). FRENZY had the familiar Hitchcock theme of a wrong man falsely accused of a crime. What was different was FRENZY not only had explicit nudity for the first time in a Hitchcock film, it had a shocking rape/murder sequence that shocked even the most fervent Hitchcock fan and made Janet Leigh's murder in PSYCHO look like child's play.

With a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer (SLEUTH) based on the novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Arthur La Bern and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, his 52nd and first R-rated film, FRENZY opens in London, England. The naked body of a young woman with a necktie around her throat is discovered floating in the Thames River, another victim of the Necktie Murderer. We cut to ex-RAF pilot and barman Richard Blaney (Jon Finch) putting a necktie on at the Globe Public House. Blaney's having a bad day, fired by the pub owner of the Globe Felix Forsythe (Bernard Cribbins) for nicking a swig of brandy and sleeping with the barmaid Barbara "Babs" Milligan (Anna Massey). Blaney runs into his friend Bob Rusk (Barry Foster) who runs a fruit and vegetable wholesale business at Covent Garden Market. Rusk gives Blaney a sure fire horse racing tip that Blaney fails to capitalize on. He doesn't have enough money to buy a ticket. Blaney wanders over to his ex-wife Brenda Blaney's (Barbara Leigh-Hunt) dating agency the Blaney Bureau (her slogan is "Marriage and Friendship") to pay her a visit.

Blaney tells Brenda he lost his job and complains about his recent rotten luck. They argue. Brenda sends her nosy assistant Monica Barling (Jean Marsh) home. She treats Blaney to dinner at her club and sneaks fifty pounds into his pocket. Blaney spends the night at a Salvation Army. The next day, Rusk shows up at Brenda's office, under the alias Mr. Robinson. Rusk seeks women who enjoy sadomasochism. Brenda tells Rusk her agency can't help him. Rusk attacks Brenda, raping her before strangling her with his necktie. Rusk is the Necktie Murderer. Rusk leaves down one alley and Blaney shows up from a different alley to see Brenda. The door is locked to her office. Miss Barling returns from lunch and sees Blaney depart the building. Miss Barling discovers Brenda's body. Barling is interviewed by Chief Inspector Oxford (Alec McCowen). She identifies Blaney as the man leaving Brenda's office before she discovered her employer's body. 

Unaware Brenda's dead, Blaney calls Babs and asks her to grab his belongings from the pub. He picks her up in a taxi and treats her to a stay at the Coburn Hotel with the money Brenda gave him. They make love and spend the night. The hotel porter (Jimmy Gardner) reads the newspaper article the next morning about the latest Necktie Murder and recognizes the description of Blaney and his jacket. The police show up at his hotel room but he's gone. Blaney and Babs have fled to a nearby park (the morning newspaper headline under their door tipping them off). Blaney swears to Babs he didn't murder his ex-wife. An old RAF friend Johnny Porter (Clive Swift) runs into Blaney and invites them to he and his wife's hotel room. Porter's wife Hetty (Billie Whitelaw) is less enthusiastic about Blaney. She tells Babs the deceased Brenda divorced Blaney on the grounds of "cruelty." Babs returns to the Globe to pick up her belongings. She runs into Rusk who invites her to stay at his flat while she figures things out. Rusk murders Babs (offscreen) as Hitchcock's camera quietly pulls away from the second story room and back down the stairs and into the busy, unsuspecting Covent Garden Market. 

That night, Rusk disposes of Babs's corpse in a burlap sack placed in a truck full of potatoes. Rusk returns to his flat and realizes Babs grabbed his monogrammed tie pin. Rusk rushes back to the truck to find the pin. The truck drives off with Rusk in the back.  After some struggle, Rusk manages to find the pin and exits the truck during a rest stop, leaving the truck gate down. Babs's body falls out of the potato truck, right in front of a following police car. Hetty reads about Babs's murder the next morning and orders Blaney out of their hotel room. Blaney realizes he now has an alibi. He never left the Porter's room. But the Porter's have a business deal in Paris and they can't afford the bad publicity. Blaney turns to his friend Rusk for help. Rusk offers Blaney his place to hide then turns him into the police, incriminating Blaney by stuffing Babs's clothes in Blaney's bag. Blaney's found guilty by a court of law. He screams Rusk's name as he's taken out of the courtroom. Inspector Oxford begins to have his doubts. Oxford's gourmet cooking wife (Vivien Merchant) believes Oxford arrested the wrong man. Oxford begins to investigate, learns Rusk was a client of Brenda's dating service. Blaney injures himself on purpose in prison, escapes from the prison hospital, and hurries to Rusk's flat to kill him. Blaney finds another dead girl in Rusk's bed, strangled with a necktie. Oxford arrives in pursuit. It looks bad for Blaney again until Rusk shows up, lugging a trunk large enough to hide a body. Oxford looks at the killer and remarks, "Mr. Rusk, you're not wearing your tie." 

For Hitchcock, FRENZY was a return to comfortable territory and familiar themes. Jon Finch was another in a long tradition of Hitchcock heroes wrongly accused of a crime like Robert Donat in THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS (1935), Robert Cummings in SABOTEUR (1942), Henry Fonda in THE WRONG MAN (1957), and Cary Grant in NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959). Bob Rusk, the serial necktie rapist/killer played by Barry Foster in FRENZY, is another charismatic if not the most creepy murderer in the Hitchcock tradition of Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943), John Dall and Farley Granger's Leopold and Loeb like homosexual killers in ROPE (1948) or Robert Walker's Bruno Antony in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951). Rusk is most like Anthony Perkins's Norman Bates in PSYCHO, driven by repressed sexual impulses with impotence Rusk's major issue. Lastly, FRENZY is another successful one word Hitchcock title in the vein of NOTORIOUS (1946), VERTIGO (1958), and of course, PSYCHO. 

While Hitchcock was coming off three box office failures in a row, he had the good sense to hire playwright and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer who was on a winning streak to write FRENZY. The mystery SLEUTH (1972) adapted by Shaffer based on his 1970 play, starring Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz was a big hit. The team of Hitchcock and Shaffer proved a winning combination for FRENZY. Shaffer picked up on Hitchcock's dark sense of humor to offset the heinous murders. Critics and fans alike trumpeted that Hitchcock was finally back with this clever thriller. After FRENZY, Shaffer penned Robin Hardy's cult horror classic THE WICKER MAN (1973) with Edward Woodard and Christopher Lee and finished the decade with a solid adaptation of Agatha Christie's mystery DEATH ON THE NILE (1978) directed by John Guillermin with an all star cast including Peter Ustinov as Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, Mia Farrow, David Niven, Bette Davis, and FRENZY'S Jon Finch.

What makes FRENZY unique in the Hitchcock canon is how modern it feels. Yes, most of his films were set in the time they were made - the 1930s thru the 1960s. But most were filmed on a studio soundstage or back lot with little real location filming. FRENZY makes full use of London. Hitchcock even opens FRENZY with a helicopter shot (minus the shaking due to new technology) as Gil Taylor's (DR. STRANGELOVE) camera soars down the Thames to a crowd gathered next to the river, listening to a politician. He puts us right in the hustle and bustle of Covent Garden Market (where Hitchcock's father worked and Hitch wandered around as a kid), an English pub, and a real English courtroom among other locations. Gone is Hitchcock's dependence on rear projection shots (I only noticed the use of rear projection once or twice) that marred MARNIE so badly. FRENZY'S characters are no Madison Avenue executives or socialites in Edith Head gowns. Blaney and Rusk are working class, their clothes rumpled, patches on their jackets, conversing in London slang, and wearing the style at the time long sideburns. 

In keeping with the new cinema of the 70s, FRENZY is Hitchcock's most gruesome film. Not since Hitchcock's black comedy THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY (1955) about a dead body that gets moved around unnoticed around a small Vermont town has the director revealed so many corpses (four in FRENZY). The rape/strangulation of  Brenda Blaney by Rusk is a grisly scene punctuated with a final shocking cut to Brenda's death mask, her eyes bulging out and her tongue protruding to the side of her mouth. Hitchcock makes his point. Rusk is a ruthless, psychotic sexual killer. Subsequent murders are done offscreen, the faces of the victims still briefly revealed with ghastly grimaces on their faces and half-naked. PSYCHO'S shower murder was a stylized virtuoso with Bernard Herrmann's screeching violin score over 52 edits in the forty five second sequence. Brenda's murder in FRENZY is in your face, brutally shocking and hard to watch even in this new era of graphic filmmaking of the 1970s. Hitchcock had shown in TORN CURTAIN how hard it was to kill a person. He goes full throttle in FRNZY. 

Hitchcock knows to alleviate these horrific acts, FRENZY needed humor. Macabre, black humor. It begins at the very beginning when a crowd rushes to look at the dead woman floating in the Thames. The well dressed politician mutters, "That's not my club tie, is it?" around the victim's neck. His posh club can't have bad publicity. The set piece with Rusk returning to the potato truck to retrieve his monogrammed jeweled pin from his victim is classic Hitchcock. Rusk's the killer yet we the audience side briefly with Rusk as we're afraid he might get caught. The corpse's foot kicks Rusk in the face as he tussles with her (making the audience snicker), the body shifting under the stack of spuds. Rusk will have to break Babs's finger to grab the pin from her, the snapping hideously loud. Later, when Inspector Oxford recounts to his wife how Rusk broker Babs's fingers to find his incriminating tie pin, Mrs. Oxford snaps a bread stick in two, the sound similar to fingers breaking, causing Inspector Oxford to wince. It's a darkly humorous scene. 

For FRENZY, Hitchcock turned to mostly unknown British stage actors (with some film credits) for his cast. Actor Jon Finch as Richard Blaney is no classic Hitchcock hero in the tradition of Cary Grant or James Stewart. Finch is good looking, a shaggy, working class Robert Donat with a thicker moustache.  Finch's Blaney is Hitchcock's first anti-hero.  He's down on his luck, an angry man, fired by his employer for pinching a small glass of brandy, who can't catch a break. Blaney's not very nice to his ex-wife or her assistant. Hitchcock paints Blaney in the first thirty minutes as the type of man who could fly off the handle and strangle a woman. When Hitchcock reveals the real Necktie Killer, the suspense switches to will Blaney be able to clear his name and catch the real killer.  Even when we know Blaney's innocent, he's still not likable. Finch's first big movie role was as the ambitious Scottish lord Macbeth in Roman Polanski's bloody version of Shakespeare's MACBETH (1971). Other film roles for Finch include a cuckold husband in Robert Bolt's LADY CAROLINE LAMB (1972) and one of the suspects in DEATH ON THE NILE.

Supposedly, Hitchcock offered the role of Bob Rusk to Michael Caine who turned it down (Caine thought the character repulsive). Later, Caine did play unsavory characters in Brian DePalma's DRESSED TO KILL (1980) and Neil Jordan's MONA LISA (1986). Caine's rejection was actor Barry Foster's good fortune. Foster is brilliant as the curly, red haired Rusk, one of Hitchcock's greatest if not most underrated villains. Foster's Rusk is charming, giving his down on his luck friend Blaney a good horse tip (which Blaney fails to capitalize on) and some fresh grapes to tide him over. Rusk even introduces a passing Blaney to his mother (a sweet, troll like looking woman that may explain Rusk's abnormal behavior). Rusk refers to himself as "Uncle Bob" (a subtle nod to Joseph Cotten's sinister Uncle Charlie in SHADOW OF A DOUBT) to his friends and acquaintances. It's only when Rusk pays a visit to Blaney's ex-wife and professional matchmaker Brenda that Rusk's darker side is revealed in full force. Foster appeared with FRENZY co-star Billie Whitelaw in Roy Boulting's TWISTED NERVE (1968), David Lean's RYAN'S DAUGHTER (1970), and James Ivory's MAURICE (1987). 

Like Janet Leigh in PSYCHO, Hitchcock kills off FRENZY'S two most sympathetic women in Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Brenda Blaney and Anna Massey as Babs Milligan. Some might call Hitchcock a misogynist, but FRENZY is about a serial killer preying on women. It's to the actresses credit that we care so much about Brenda and Babs. Brenda and Babs (and we the audience) see a side of Richard that his ex-boss, his former friends, and the authorities don't see - a relatively decent guy struggling in the world to find his place. Leigh-Hunt is another Hitchcock blonde. Her murder in FRENZY is not as famous as Janet Leigh's in PSYCHO, but it's much more violent and unsettling, fitting in with this new age of cinema in the early 1970s. 

FRENZY was Leigh-Hunt's film debut. Other films Leigh-Hunt appeared in include HENRY VIII AND HIS SIX WIVES (1972) where she played one of Henry's wives Catherine Parr; THE NELSON AFFAIR (1973) with Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch; and a role in the Chevy Chase dog comedy OH HEAVENLY DOG (1980). Television was Leigh-Hunt's primary medium. Besides FRENZY, Anna Massey who portrays Babs Milligan began her film career in the controversial British equivalent to PSYCHO Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM (1960) about a killer who films his victims as they die. Massey had a long career in television and film after FRENZY appearing in George Roy Hill's A LITTLE ROMANCE (1979) and Oliver Parker's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (2002). 

Alec McCowen (NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN) and Vivian Merchant (ALFIE) as Inspector Oxford and his wife Mrs. Oxford provide the humor that FRENZY craves with all its terrible murders. The Inspector is a guinea pig to his wife's gourmet cooking class recipes (including fish heads and pig's feet with hilarious results). It's Mrs. Oxford, listening to her husband discuss the Necktie Murderer case, who first believes that Blaney's innocent. Rounding out the excellent British supporting cast are Clive Swift (EXCALIBUR) and Billie Whitelaw (THE OMEN) as Blaney's old friends Johnny and Hetty Porter; Jean Marsh (THE EAGLE HAS LANDED) as Brenda's nosy assistant Miss Barling; and Michael Bates (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) as Inspector Oxford's sidekick Sergeant Spearman. 

After proving that he wasn't old fashioned and irrelevant with the success of FRENZY, Hitchcock did a 180 degree turn from the extreme violence and sex in FRENZY and went lighter for his final film FAMILY PLOT (1976), a dark comedy about two sets of con men and women. One of Hitch's favorite screenwriters Ernest Lehman who wrote the screenplay for NORTH BY NORTHWEST would pen FAMILY PLOT. Like FRENZY, Hitchcock cast up and coming young actors in William Devane, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, and Karen Black instead of big movie stars. FAMILY PLOT was the first Hitchcock film I saw in a movie theater. I went with my parents and the film was engaging and entertaining. Although Alfred Hitchcock planned on making more films, working on various scripts with different screenwriters, FAMILY PLOT was his final film. He passed away in 1980. 

Some final FRENZY thoughts and tidbits.  I've never connected Hitchcock with the English horror studio Hammer Films. The last shot in FRENZY of Rusk dropping the trunk with a thud followed by the credits rolling over the trunk and composer Ron Goodwin's ominous score felt like how a Hammer horror film might end. Dramatic. Hitchcock appears twice in FRENZY, both in the opening scene.  We first see him wearing a bowler hat, listening to the politician talk about cleaning up the waterfront (as a dead body washes up on shore). Hitchcock is the only audience member not applauding. Soon after, he's still at the square watching the police retrieve the woman's body as bystanders around him comment about the Necktie Murderer. Hitchcock used female body doubles for his actresses Barbara Leigh-Hunt and Anne Massey for a couple of the nude scenes in FRENZY. Director Brian DePalma whose films like SISTERS (1972), OBSESSION (1976), and DRESSED TO KILL (1980) were updated homages to Hitchcock films made a thriller called BODY DOUBLE (1984) set in the 1980s porn industry.

FRENZY is Hitchcock's last great film after nearly a decade of misfires. FRENZY was a gritty return to the PSYCHO landscape with an early horrific murder and a fascinating killer on the loose. With his big movie stars getting up in years, Hitchcock turned to young, English stage actors to carry the story while reminding critics and his fans he was still a visual virtuoso whether it was having his camera back away from Rusk about to strangle Babs in his second story flat (offscreen) and back down the stairs to the unsuspecting workers on the streets of Covent Garden Market or the overhead shot of a trapped and supposedly guilty Richard Blaney in his prison cell, the walls of justice closing in on the wrong man. With FRENZY, the Master of Suspense adapted to the current times, pushing the boundaries once again as Hitchcock had done for all of his distinguished film career. 

100 Rifles (1969) and Bad Girls (1994)

I would bet that most movie fans would pick Marilyn Monroe as their top cinema crush, and I would not disagree with their pick. But when CRAZYFILMGUY was a young boy just discovering how beautiful women were, my first cinematic crush was on Olivia DeHavilland (oh those round cheeks and long, flowing hair) as Maid Marian in Michael Curtiz's THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1937). My second cinematic crush was around 1973 when I saw Raquel Welch in Richard Lester's THE THREE MUSKETEERS. I think the combination of Welch's sexy sounding name, voluptuous curves, and beautiful face turned me into jelly. I'm pretty sure I saw THE THREE MUSKETEERS before I saw the Raquel Welch poster for ONE MILLION YEARS B.C. (1966) with Welch in a caveman style bikini. Either way, it was love at first sight.

Raquel Welch did not have quite the movie career as Marilyn Monroe (although Welch had a kinder private life than Monroe). Welch's film success was up and down with good films like Lester's THE THREE MUSKETEERS and THE FOUR MUSKETEERS (1974) as well as Herbert Ross's star studded whodunit THE LAST OF SHEILA (also 1973). The not so good films for Welch include Michael Sarne's MYRA BRECKINRIDGE (1970) or Peter Yates' MOTHER, JUGS, AND SPEED (1976). One genre I think Raquel Welch was a groundbreaker for women and one of the first female action stars was the western. Welch's first western was Andrew V. McLaglen's BANDOLERO (1968) with James Stewart and Dean Martin but it's Tom Gries 100 RIFLES (1969) that Welch showed she was not only beautiful and sexy but one of the boys. 

Yes one could argue that Joan Crawford in JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) or Barbara Stanwyck in FORTY GUNS (1957) were strong western female role models and they were. But Welch is more than a pretty face in 100 RIFLES. Welch is a female action hero, riding fast on horses, shooting rifles, getting dirty and dusty tussling with the Mexican Army, and still finds time for one of cinema's first interracial love scenes with ex-football player Jim Brown. Welch came on the western scene just as actor Clint Eastwood and director Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns like A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS (1964) were rewriting the western genre.  100 RIFLES owes much of its style and plot to the Leone/Eastwood films (including filming in the same Spain locations as Leone's films) as well as Richard Brooks THE PROFESSIONALS (1966) and Sam Peckinpah's THE WILD BUNCH (1969). Besides exploring 100 RIFLES and its eclectic cast with Welch, Brown, and a young Burt Reynolds, CRAZYFILMGUY is going to review a more recent film that owes its roots to Welch's westerns with not one but four female western protagonists in Jonathan Kaplan's BAD GIRLS (1994).

But first Raquel Welch. With a screenplay by Clair Huffaker and Tom Gries based on the novel The Californio by Robert McLeod and directed by Tom Gries (BREAKHEART PASS), 100 RILES takes place in Sonora, Mexico in 1912. A beautiful Indian revolutionary Sarita (Raquel Welch) is forced to witness a group of Mexican soldiers hang her father. Sarita's brought into a nearby town where Mexican General Verdugo (Fernando Llamas) and German observer Lieutenant Franz Von Klemme (Eric Braeden credited as Hans Gudegast) are executing the local Yaqui Indian population so the railroad represented by American Steven Grimes (Dan O'Herlihy) can lay railroad tracks through the Yaqui lands. Watching from a hotel balcony is bank robber and Sarita's partner "Yaqui Joe" Herrera (Burt Reynolds). Joe is wanted for having stolen $6,000 from a Phoenix bank. Riding into town is black American Sheriff Lyedecker (Jim Brown) seeking to capture Joe for a $200 reward.

When Joe stiffs a local prostitute (Soledad Miranda), she makes a scene outside the hotel and Joe is grabbed by Verdugo but not before Joe encourages the Yaqui Indians to run. A skirmish ensues allowing Sarita to escape. Verdugo arrests Joe and Lyedecker and takes them onto his train. Joe reveals to Lyedecker he stole the $6,000 to buy one hundred rifles to arm the Yaqui Indians in their fight with the Mexican Army and the railroad. Joe's half Yaqui and half American. Lyedecker and Joe escape from the sitting train, steal some horses, and race into the hills, splitting up so the pursuing Verdugo can't catch them. They reunite at an abandoned Spanish church. Verdugo finds them. He orders one of  his soldiers to kill Sarita. Sarita kills the soldier as he attempts to rape her.

Verdugo brings Lyedecker and Joe back to his private compound/hacienda where he chains them together. Verdugo's soldiers have found the stolen rifles. Grimes brings the two men water. Grimes does not support Verdugo's slaughter of the Indians in the name of railroad. Lyedecker and Joe are about to be executed when Sarita and the Yaqui Indians engineer a sneak attack on the hacienda, rescuing Lyedecker and Joe and stealing back the rifles. They flee to the river and separate, agreeing to meet later. Sarita takes Lyedecker back to her Yaqui village where he meets her people and their children. Sarita tries to enlist Lyedecker in their cause. Lyedecker's not interested. Joe returns. Verdugo's men are close again. The three flee into the hills. Verdugo's soldiers burn the village and kidnap the children. Sarita and the Yaquis return the favor and lay siege on Verdugo's hacienda, killing the soldiers and reclaiming the children. Hiding in the hacienda, Grimes accidentally shoots Lyedecker in the arm, wounding him. Sarita dresses Lyedecker's injury which leads to Lyedecker and Sarita making love.

The Yaquis celebrate their brief victory by getting drunk and burning down Verdugo's compound. Grimes flees by horse during the commotion. Sarita, Lyedecker, and Joe ride into a white adobe town to meet up with the Yaqui leader General Romero only to learn Romero's been killed (in a sequence cut from the film). The rebels elect Lyedecker as their new leader. Lyedecker's first plan is to attack Verdugo's train bringing more Mexican soldiers to the fight. As the train heads toward a water tower, the soldiers see Sarita taking a shower. Distracted by the lovely Sarita, Lyedecker, Joe, and the Yaquis ambush the train, killing the soldiers.  Grimes arrives into town and warns Verdugo and Von Klemme the Yaquis are coming for them. Hiding behind the dead soldiers, the rebels ride into town on the confiscated train. Verdugo fires at the train with a cannon, causing the train to derail into the town's buildings. A final battle ensues with Lyedecker leading the cavalry and Joe and Sarita fighting alongside the Yaquis to defeat Verdugo and the Mexican Army with rifles and dynamite but not without a tragic loss to the group.

Welch is not just a pretty face in 100 RIFLES. Yes, Welch has one of cinema's first interracial love scenes with Jim Brown. She uses her curvaceous body in a shower scene at a water tower to distract the Mexican Army on a train before they're ambushed. But Welch's Sarita is a revolutionary leader and a Madonna figure for her people, the Yaqui Indians. Sarita leads them into battle against Verdugo, Von Flemme, and the Mexican Army. She rescues Lyedecker and Joe from execution. It's Sarita that Joe teams up with to distribute the rifles to the Yaquis. Welch rides horses over rocks and down steep cliffs, shoots rifles, kills a would be rapist with a knife, and tussles in the dirt and mud just like the men do. Sarita becomes fond of Lyedecker but I argue she uses her sexuality to seduce the black sheriff to join their cause. Sarita recognizes the born leader in Lyedecker. In 100 RIFLES most shocking moment (no, not the interracial love scene), it's not Lyedecker or Joe who dies fighting for freedom and justice It's (SPOILER ALERT) Sarita, her limp body carried by Humara (Michael Forest), her Yaqui compatriot to Lyedecker and Joe after Verdugo and his army are defeated. It's a bold decision to kill the sexiest, most beautiful rebel of the trio.  

Some cinephiles may argue that actress Claudia Cardinale was the first western action hero not Raquel Welch. As much as I am also in love (cinematically speaking) with Cardinale, she never raced around on horses or engaged in shootouts like Welch does in 100 RIFLES. Cardinale was another early Western sex symbol in films like THE PROFESSIONALS and ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. Cardinale played either Mexican mistresses or reformed whores (Cardinale was born in Tunisia but raised in Italy). I have no doubt Cardinale would have been right at home playing one of the boys and shooting guns and riding bareback. It just wasn't meant to be in the roles she was cast in. Besides BANDOLERO and 100 RIFLES, Raquel Welch had one other western role that provided her with another strong female character.  Welch starred in Burt Kennedy's HANNIE CAULDER (1971) as the revenge minded title character pursuing three outlaw brothers (Ernes Borgnine, Strother Martin, and Jack Elam) who raped her and murdered her husband.

There's no question 100 RILES is influenced by a few of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns including filming in the same Almeria, Spain locations that Leone made famous in his films. Like Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD,  AND THE UGLY (1966), 100 RIFLES has a trio of disparate characters that are ultimately drawn together for a common goal. Call Welch, Brown, and Reynolds the Beautiful, the Black, and the Brave. In THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY,  Lee Van Cleef's Angel Eyes bounty hunter pursues Eli Wallach's Tuco only to become entangled with Tuco and Clint Eastwood's Blondie's quest to find stolen gold. Greed is a motivating factor for them. In 100 RIFLES, it's Brown as American sheriff Lyedecker who's pursuing bank robber Burt Reynold's Yaqui Joe. Brown will ultimately join Sarita and Joe's cause to arm their people (the Yaqui Indians) with guns to fight the Mexican Army and the expanding railroad. 

Railroad expansion is a catalyst to the plot for 100 RIFLES and Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969). Gunslinger Henry Fonda is hired by a railroad baron to kill an Irish immigrant family standing in the way of the railroad's progress in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. In 100 RIFLES, it's the Mexican Army exterminating the Yaqui Indians and burning their villages to make way for railway expansion. Both villains in each film use a train car as their office and to move back and forth in the landscape as they try to accomplish their nefarious goals. Director Gries in 100 RIFLES stages two good set pieces with a train: a sneak attack on a train carrying Verdugo's soldiers by Sarita and the Yaquis and later a runaway train that derails in the nearby town. 

What makes 100 RIFLES stand out for CrazyFilmGuy is the eclectic cast. Besides rising sex symbol Raquel Welch, 100 RIFLES gives us former NFL running back turned actor Jim Brown and soon to be major movie star Burt Reynolds. For Brown, 100 RIFLES was an opportunity for an African American actor to have a major role in a Hollywood film, a rarity at the time afforded only to the likes of Sidney Poitier (IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT). Brown's Sheriff Lyedecker is the classic laconic hero. His actions speak louder than his words. Lyedecker arrives in Mexico carrying some baggage left behind in the U.S. (perhaps racism towards towards his authority role as a black man). In pursuit of bank robber Yaqui Joe, Lyedecker has traveled a long way for a $200 reward. Lyedecker tries to remain an outsider in the war between Verdugo and the Mexican Army and the Yaquis. He will be drawn in by the lovely Sarita and his own awakening that he's a born leader. By the film's climax, Lyedecker will return to the U.S. without Yaqui Joe but with a purpose to right some wrongs back home. 

Brown discovered he liked acting after appearing in Robert Aldrich's WWII adventure film THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967) and retired from the Cleveland Browns shortly after to pursue his dream. Ironically, two of Brown's greatest fears, riding a horse and heights, happen in 100 RIFLES. Brown is constantly on a horse (this is a western after all) and he and Reynolds have a fight scene on an actual cliff with Brown dangling Reynolds over the edge while handcuffed THE DEFIANT ONES style. Brown's film career included more westerns like John Guillermin's EL CONDOR (1970) to blaxploitation films such as the title character in Jack Starrett's SLAUGHTER (1972) to comedies that introduced him to a new generation in Keenan Ivory Wayans I'M GONNA GIT U SUCKA (1988) to big budget films like Tim Burton's MARS ATTACKS! (1996). 

Burt Reynolds was just breaking into film from television at the time of 100 RIFLES. On face value, Reynolds' Yaqui Joe is the prototype up and coming actor role in the vein of Jeffrey Hunter in John Ford's THE SEARCHERS (1956) or Ricky Nelson in Howard Hawks RIO BRAVO (1959) or James Caan in Hawks EL DORADO (1966) although Reynolds looks a tad older. Reynolds had been knocking around in mediocre movies like Arnold Laven's SAM WHISKEY (also 1969) and Gordon Douglas's SKULLDUGGERY (1970). Reynolds shows some range in 100 RIFLES as half breed Yaqui Joe transforming from a reluctant rebel to a man who finds his purpose and calling as the leader of his people. We see glimpses of Reynolds sense of humor in 100 RIFLES that he would carry throughout his career. Just three years later, Reynolds would be part of an ensemble cast including Jon Voight and Ned Beatty in John Boorman's harrowing DELIVERANCE (1972) and become a major movie star. Hit films like Robert Aldrich's THE LONGEST YARD (1974) and Hal Needham's SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (1977) followed and Reynolds never looked back.

Special mention to two supporting cast members who add flavor to 100 RIFLES. Fernando Lamas plays the role of the villainous General Verdugo with sadistic flair and relish. The only despicable thing Verdugo fails to do is twirl his moustache. Lamas's Verdugo puts our three heroes in 100 RIFLES through hell. He will receive a welcome comeuppance from the Yaquis in 100 RIFLE'S finale. Born in Argentina, Lamas began his career playing Latin romantic leading men in films like Curtis Bernhardt's THE MERRY WIDOW (1952) co-starring Lana Turner and John Brahm's THE DIAMOND QUEEN (1953). Lamas did not have a huge film career but found much success in front and behind the camera in television. Look for Lamas's young son Lorenzo Lamas (TV's FALCON CREST) in a brief role as one of the Yaqui Indian children. 

Dan O'Herlihy as the railroad representative Stephen Grimes is 100 RIFLES most complex character. Grimes plays both sides as he tries to stay above the killing and fighting between the Mexican Army and the Yaqui Indians. His only objective is to keep his train running. Grimes doesn't like Verdugo's murderous tactics. When Lyedecker and Joe are shackled in the heat, he brings them water. Later, Grimes accidentally shoots Lyedecker in the arm as the Yaquis besiege the hacienda he's hiding out in. In the end, Grimes warns Verdugo the Yaquis are coming on his stolen train to attack the army. He plays no favorites. After Verdugo falls, Grimes tells the new leaders Lyedecker and Joe he can repair the blown up train. Grimes is always working the angles. O'Herlihy's career was diverse with appearances in Orson Welles MACBETH (1948), Sidney Lumet's FAIL SAFE (1964), and as the Old Man in Paul Verhoeven's sci-fi thriller ROBOCOP (1987). 

Welch as a female action star did not ignite a series of copycat westerns with sexy female protagonists. In part, the death of the western as a genre in the early 70s can be attributed to that. Since 100 RIFLES (and Welch's HANNIE CAULDER), there have been a few instances of female western action roles. Sam  Raimi's THE QUICK AND THE DEAD (1995) cast Sharon Stone as a female gunslinger pitted against Gene Hackman in a loving homage to Leone's style and films. I had high hopes for Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg's BANDIDAS (2006) with red hot Latin actresses Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek as bank robbers in turn of the century Mexico. The film was dusty but not very sexy. It was Christopher Cain's YOUNG GUNS (1987), an all male Brat Pack western starring Kiefer Sutherland, Emilio Estavez, Charlie Sheen, and Lou Diamond Phillips that provided the inspiration for a female western ensemble six years later with not one but four female action heroes in BAD GIRLS (1994).

BAD GIRLS seems to have been a film written by committee.  Based on a story by Albert S. Ruddy, Charles Finch, and Gray Fredrickson with final screenplay credit to Ken Friedman and Yolande Finch (now Turner) and directed by Jonathan Kaplan (HEART LIKE A WHEEL), BAD GIRLS introduces us to four women, forced to turn to prostitution for different reasons, working at a saloon/brothel in Echo City, Colorado. We meet former outlaw Cody Zamora (Madeleine Stowe), recently widowed Anita Crown (Mary Stuart Masterson), southern belle (or is she) Eileen Spenser (Andie MacDowell), and spunky blonde Lilly Laronette (Drew Barrymore). When Cody saves Anita by shooting and killing Colonel Clayborne (Will MacMillan) who's abusing her, a lynch mob catches and prepares to hang Cody. The three other women disrupt the hanging with horses and a wagon and break Cody free, fleeing into the countryside. During a rest stop, Anita reveals she owns a deed to land in the Oregon Territory. She convinces the girls to join her dream to build a sawmill. Cody offers to fund the enterprise with $12,000 she has saved in a bank in Aqua Dulce, Texas.

The Colonel's widow Mrs. Clayborne (Zoaunne LeRoy) hires two Pinkerton Detectives, Graves (Jim Beaver) and O'Brady (Nick Chinlund) to track and capture the killer whore. The girls encounter prospector Josh McCoy (Dermot Mulroney) who warns them the Pinkertons are on their trail. At the bank in Aqua Dulce, Cody's withdrawal of her money is interrupted by a bank robbery led by Cody's former lover and crime partner Kid Jarrett (James Russo). Jarrett and his gang rob the bank and take Cody's money, taunting Cody to come retrieve it. Cody pursues after Kid Jarrett and his gang. Eileen is caught by the sheriff and put in jail where she's watched by a recently deputized rancher William Tucker (James LeGros) who takes a liking to her. Cody rides into the Kid Jarrett's hideout where she reconnects with the Kid's equally unpleasant father Frank Jarrett (Robert Loggia). Kid Jarrett toys with Cody, giving her money back then bullwhipping her for leaving him.  McCoy finds Cody unconscious on her horse and brings her back to Aqua Dulce to recuperate with the aid of a Chinese healer.

McCoy tells Cody he has a score to settle with Frank Jarrett who stole his father's claim. Lilly shows up to break Eileen out of jail only to have Tucker just let her walk free. Lilly and Eileen ride to Tucker's ranch followed by Cody, Anita, and McCoy. Kid Jarrett and his gang hijack an army wagon train and take the army's prized new Gatling machine gun. Cody, the girls, and McCoy spy nearby. They ambush Kid Jarrett and his men. Anita rides off with the wagon full of weapons. Tucker is wounded in the firefight. Lilly's snared by Kid Jarrett's whip and taken back to his hideout. McCoy wounds Frank and they grab him as a bargaining chip for Lilly

Anita regrets getting involved in Cody's revenge plan. Frank tries to get into Anita and McCoy's head. McCoy shoots and kills Frank, angering Cody. Kid Jarrett and his posse toy with Lilly, tormenting her mentally before forcing her to change into a fancy red dress. Anita rides into Aqua Dulce and discovers her claim is no good without her dead husband per the law. McCoy rides to Kid Jarrett's hideout and breaks Lilly out by using some of Tucker's dynamite. Lilly escapes by horse but McCoy is captured by Kid Jarrett. The Bad Girls ride to Kid Jarrett's hideout to make a swap. The Gatling machine gun and guns for McCoy. True to his nature, Kid Jarrett reneges on the deal and shoots McCoy in the back. The Bad Girls and Kid Jarrett and his posse shoot it out with the Bad Girls coming out victorious in the end. Eileen decides to stay and marry Tucker. Cody, Anita, and Lilly head west to pursue their dreams, riding unnoticed past the still pursuing Pinkerton detectives.

It should come as no surprise that the four female protagonists in BAD GIRLS are prostitutes. Westerns have been fascinated with the world's oldest profession from Claire Trevor in John Ford's STAGECOACH (1939) to Claudia Cardinale in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. I presume they're cinematically more eye catching than four frontier schoolteachers. BAD GIRLS does not sugar coat their profession or how they are viewed. BAD GIRLS reminds us that prostitution is not a choice these four women made. They had previous lives that fell apart due to circumstances, death, or desperation. Most of the men in BAD GIRLS are depicted as misogynists, calling them "whores" and "sluts" without regard that they're human beings or to their situation. The catalyst for BAD GIRLS is Cody having to shoot and kill Colonel Clayborne, a married john who's abusing Anita. 

These BAD GIRLS are no wallflowers. They shoot pistols, rifles, and even a Gatling machine gun; ride horses over land and water, and drive horse drawn wagons at a fast clip.  Welch's Sarita in 100 RIFLES would be proud of these strong women. They use their feminine charms to get what they need but they're not looking for love (except Eileen who finds it by accident). BAD GIRLS steers away from any sexiness except for a scene where McCoy stumbles across Cody bathing naked in a stream or Kid Jarrett forcing Lillie to strip down to her underwear to wear a red dress he wants to see her in. 

Originally, BAD GIRLS was to be directed by a woman, director Tamra Davis (GUNCRAZY) and included a gang rape scene and some violent retribution by the prostitutes toward their clients. The studio 20th Century Fox got cold feet with that storyline and replaced Davis with Jonathan Kaplan to make a more traditional western with a feminine slant. Although a male director, Kaplan was highly regarded for his work with actresses and powerful female storylines including HEART LIKE A WHEEL (1983) about female drag racer Shirley Muldowney (Bonnie Bedelia) and THE ACCUSED (1988) starring Jodie Foster and Kelly McGillis. Kaplan's BAD GIRLS is an all-girl THE WILD BUNCH as the four women march into an enemy compound (like William Holden and company in THE WILD BUNCH) to rescue their comrade McCoy from Kid Jarrett (there's even a Gatling machine gun involved). Besides inspiration from Peckinpah's classic, BAD GIRLS owes a nod to THE PROFESSIONALS which like THE WILD BUNCH had four main characters taking on a group of bad guys. 

The four actresses in BAD GIRLS are engaging with one surprising me with her performance and one the least believable of the four. For the most part, the four women are plainly appealing (save one) which makes them a little more realistic than sex symbol Raquel Welch in 100 RIFLES. Madeleine Stowe is the perfect choice as the alpha female ex-bank robber Cody Zamora. Stowe proved she was adept at action alongside Daniel Day-Lewis in Michael Mann's THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992). Mary Stuart Masterson as recently widowed Anita Crown played some tomboys early in her career like Howard Deutch's SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL (1987). Masterson shows toughness and vulnerability as a frontier woman trying to survive in the Wild West. Although I'm a huge fan of Andie MacDowell (FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL), her Eileen Spenser is the weakest role in BAD GIRLS. I never quite figured out what her character was about (a former Southern belle?). MacDowell was too good looking to be a prostitute. A saloon dancer or singer might have suited her better.

My preconceived notion was Drew Barrymore as Lilly Laronette would be the odd girl out, the weakest link. But if you get past the beach blonde hair, Barrymore's Lilly is sassy, funny, and has one of the sadder back stories of the four in BAD GIRLS. It's a grown up, mature role for an actress I grew up with when she was six years old as Gertie in Steven Spielberg's E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTIAL (1982). What love interests there are for the four women include Dermot Mulroney as Josh McCoy, a prospector seeking revenge on Frank Jarrett. McCoy and Cody have a few brief romantic moments but it's a doomed relationship. Mulroney has the distinction of appearing in both YOUNG GUNS as Dirty Steve Stephens and BAD GIRLS. James LeGros (DRUGSTORE COWBOY), a minor league looking version of Brad Pitt (in a good way) as kind rancher William Tucker will go from keeping an eye on Eileen in jail to winning her heart and marrying her as the film concludes.

Every western needs a good villain and BAD GIRLS provides two of them: the charismatic but sadistic Kid Jarrett and his equally despicable father Frank Jarrett played by James Russo (EXTREMITIES) and Robert Loggia (REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER). Russo's Kid Jarrett is a plus for BAD GIRLS.  We first meet Kid Jarrett as he and his gang rob a bank where his ex-lover Cody Zamora happens to be withdrawing her life savings. Russo's Kid Jarrett comes across initially as a rogue and a charmer. He takes Cody's money making her pursue him back to his hideout. The Kid's just toying with Cody, hoping to steal not just her money but a kiss.  When we think Kid Jarrett's going to return the money back to Cody, he bullwhips Cody almost to death for deserting him, leaving her for dead on the range. Having started his career playing villains and gangsters in films like Martin Brest's BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984) and Francis Coppola's THE COTTON CLUB (1984), Russo's experience playing bad guys after a decade shows as Kid Jarrett is a more layered baddie, a jilted boyfriend who happens to be a sociopath. 

Kid Jarrett's upbringing makes sense when we're introduced to his equally heartless father Frank Jarrett played by the excellent supporting actor Robert Loggia. Loggia's appearance in BAD GIRLS is brief yet every scene Frank appears in he oozes venom and hate. Frank's like the modern obnoxious Little League baseball father, questioning Kid Jarrett's every decision. We learn Frank stole a mining claim from Josh McCoy's father leading to Josh's vendetta on Frank.  Loggia's distinguished career included roles as gangsters, generals, and toy executives in films like Brian DePalma's SCARFACE (1983), Penny Marshall's BIG (1988), Roland Emmerich's INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996), and David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY (1997). Loggia makes BAD GIRLS better even if it's not a great film.

With its switch from an all female directing and screenwriting team to multiple new screenwriters and a new male director, BAD GIRLS has a truncated, uneven feel to it. A few scenes feel unfinished or shortened.  The Pinkerton detectives tracking the girls subplot disappears for the middle part of the film only for them to pop up as a token reminder at the very end.  What BAD GIRLS makes up for its choppy narrative is a couple of good action set pieces: the Bad Girls heisting the guns from Kid Jarrett's men and the classic penultimate gun battle between the Bad Girls and the Bad Guys. BAD GIRLS carries on the tradition that Raquel Welch began in 100 RIFLES that women could be just as physical and action oriented as the John Wayne's, Clint Eastwood's, and Gary Cooper's in a western.  Welch had Jim Brown and Burt Reynolds to fight alongside.  BAD GIRLS gives us four women who fight for their independence and a chance at a better life than the prospect of prostitution for the rest of their lives.  Connecting both 100 RIFLES and BAD GIRLS is composer Jerry Goldsmith who provided the music for both westerns. Thanks Jerry.  Long live the female action western heroine!