"Using unknowns you avoid highly exaggerated salaries and prima donnas."
To repeat ourselves: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,
Russ Meyer's baroque 1967 masterpiece, one of only two movies he ever
made for a major Hollywood studio (in this case, Fox), is without a
doubt one of the Babest movies ever made. While we have yet to review it
here at a wasted life (if we did, we would foam at the mouth in raging rave), we have looked at it before: back in 2011, in our R.I.P. Career Review of Charles Napier (12 Apr 1936 – 5 Oct 2011), and again in 2013 in our R.I.P. Career Review for the Great Haji(24
Jan 1946 – 10 Aug 2013) — both appear in the film — not to mention in
almost every Babe of Yesteryear blog entry the past 1.5+ years.
"This is not a sequel. There has never been anything like it!"
Advertisement tagline
In Haji's
entry, we were wrote, among other things, the following: "Originally
intended as a sequel to the 1967 movie version of Jacqueline Susann's
novel Valley of the Dolls (trailer),
Meyer and co-screenwriter Roger Ebert instead made a Pop Art
exploitation satire of the conventions of the modern Hollywood
melodrama, written in sarcasm but played straight, complete with a
'moralistic' ending that owes its inspiration to the Manson-inspired
murder of Sharon Tate
and her guests on August 9, 1969. Aside from the movie's absolutely
insane plot, the cinematography is also noteworthy — as are the figures
of the pneumatic babes that populate the entire movie. For legal
reasons, the film starts with the following disclaimer: 'The film you
are about to see in not a sequel to Valley of the Dolls. It is wholly
original and bears no relationship to real persons, living or dead. It
does, like Valley of the Dolls, deal with the oft-times nightmare world
of show business but in a different time and context.' [...]"
"Any movie that Jacqueline Susann thinks would damage her reputation as a writer cannot be all bad."
Russ Meyer films are always populated by amazing breasts sights, but Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
literally overflows its cups in an excess of pulchritude that (even if
somewhat more demurely covered than in most of his films) lights the
fires of any person attracted to women of the curvaceous kind that
preceded today's sculptured plasticity. The film is simply Babe Galore.
And so we continue our look at the flesh film careers of the breasts women of the Babest Film of All Times, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. The size of the women's breasts roles is of lesser importance than the simple fact that they are known to be in it somewhere, and so far we have looked at the cleavage
known unknowns and mildly knowns in the background and the headlining
semi-knowns in the front for too many monthly blog entries — with more breasts babes to come. Our entries focus on their nipples careers in film, if in a meandering manner, and we have slightly less than another half-year to go before we're finished drooling with the project.*
*One set of love pillows Babe we don't look is she who is an American National Treasure: the Great Pam Grier. Though she had her film debut in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
unseen somewhere in the background of the opening party scene and
therefore should be included, we feel that a Wonderment of her caliber
deserves an entry all of her own — a Sisyphean task we might one day
undertake.
So far, we have looked at the T&A careers of the following women of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls:
Part I: The Non-babe of Note — Princess Livingston
Part II: Background Babe — Jacqulin Cole
Part III: Background Babe — Bebe Louie
Part IV: Background Babe — Trina Parks
Part V: Background Babe — Lavelle Roby, Pt. I (1968-76)
Part VI: Background Babe — Lavelle Roby. Pt. II (1979-2021)
Part VII: Killer Babe — Samantha Scott
Part VIII: Background Babe — Karen Smith
Part IX: Background Babes — The Five Mysterians
Part X: Background Babe —Gina Dair
Part XI: Background Babe — Cissi Colpitts, Pt. I (1970-80)
Part XII: Background Babe — Cissi Colpitts, Pt. II (1981-88)
Part XIII: BVD — Phyllis Davis, Pt. I (1966-73)
Part XIV: BVD — Phyllis Davis, Pt. II (1975-2013)
Part XV: Background Babe of BVD — Veronica Ericson
Part XVI: BVD — Edy Williams, Pt. I (1963-67)
Part XVII: BVD — Edy Williams, Pt. II (1968-82)
Part XVIII: BVD — Edy Williams, Pt. III (1983-90)
Part XIX: BVD — Erica Gavin, Pt. I (1965-71)
Erica Gavin, perhaps one of
the most naturally beautiful women to appear in a Russ Meyer movie, was born in
Los Angeles, CA, as Donna Graff, on 22 July 1947 to Madeleine [Louise
Rosenstiel] and Fred Graff (2 Jun 1920 – 6 Sept 2008). Fred was a Bronx-born
actor (see: Cry of the Werewolf [1944 / trailer]
or Union Station [1950 / trailer]) whose short
career was killed by the blacklist of the McCarthy era. Her childhood in
Silverlake, as described
at her website, does not seem to have been an untroubled one, and
she led a life that easily could have made her a member of Club 27. She was out of the
family house by 1964 and living with her artist boyfriend Bob Gavin, whom she
eventually married so as not to have to testify against him after a drug bust.
By 1966, he was in jail on tax evasion charges and the underage Donna, in need of an income, she got herself a fake ID as the of-age "Erica Gavin"— Gavin being her married name, Erica being the name of her mother's best friend's daughter — and began working for an agency, Models A Go-Go. While working as a topless dancer at Losers, she became friends with Bebe Louie, not to mention the Great Haji and Tura Satana. The latter two both told her she should meet Russ Meyer, but her eventual involvement in Vixen! (1968) resulted when she responded to an actual casting call she read in Variety while at waiting in a dental office. The rest is history, you could say, though for years she seemingly fell off the face of the earth after Caged Heat (1974)...
By 1966, he was in jail on tax evasion charges and the underage Donna, in need of an income, she got herself a fake ID as the of-age "Erica Gavin"— Gavin being her married name, Erica being the name of her mother's best friend's daughter — and began working for an agency, Models A Go-Go. While working as a topless dancer at Losers, she became friends with Bebe Louie, not to mention the Great Haji and Tura Satana. The latter two both told her she should meet Russ Meyer, but her eventual involvement in Vixen! (1968) resulted when she responded to an actual casting call she read in Variety while at waiting in a dental office. The rest is history, you could say, though for years she seemingly fell off the face of the earth after Caged Heat (1974)...
She has since resurfaced. To learn the more details about up and downs of her life, may we suggest the Bio chapters at her website: Growing Up in Silverlake, Hollywood Teen, Rock 'N' Roll Adventures, Evolving Sexuality, Addiction Hell, The Fashionista, The Mansion ConnectionandErica Does Europe. Currently, we await the publication of her autobiography, Vixen: My Life and Movies.
Go
here for:
Erica Gavin, Pt. I (1965-71)
Godmonster of Indian Flats
(1973, writ. & dir. Fredric Hobbs)
"Probably the Schindler's List (1993 / trailer) of mutant killer sheep films."
A
movie that Erica Gavin has scant memories of, despite receiving screen
credit, for she says: "I have no recollection of making God Monster.
Hmmmmm... it's weird to see yourself in a film when you don't recall
being there or doing it. No fault of the filmmaker, it was definitely me
holding up the bar in the bar scene; oh well, that was then and this is
now. [RockShockPop]"
"Erica is only in the beginning of the movie for about 10 minutes and has
one line 'Where are we going?' The movie is super cheesed and weird
but is still totally worth watching. [Streetlight Records]"
AGFA trailer to
Godmonster of Indian Flats:
We looked at an earlier C. Frederic Hobbs (30 Dec 1931 – 25 Apr 2018) flick, his WTF musical Roseland (1970) way back in 2014 in R.I.P.: Harry H. Novak, Pt. VIII,
where we pointed out that "Fredric Hobbs — aka Charles Fredric Hobbs —
is/was less a filmmaker than an artist (a graduate of Cornell, he also
studied at the Academia de San Fernando de Bellas Artes in Madrid), and
as an artist, he occasionally made films." To that, the Worldwide Celluloid Massacre might add: Hobbs is "a freaky
film-maker who takes the art of bad and cheesy film-making beyond this
world into another dimension. Combining illogical writing, completely
random plot development, b-movie horror and cheese, odd choices of
insanely dull scenes and dialogue and other indescribable elements,
Hobbs makes some of the most mind-warping movies ever in the sense that
your mind tries to run away from the black hole that is Fredric Hobbs in
any way possible."
From Roseland —
You Cannot Fart Around with Love:
Godmonster of Indian Flats
is, in any event, his last known available film (he seems to have made
two subsequent films, neither of which are currently in circulation).
Another trailer to
Godmonster of Indian Flats:
The plot of Godmonster of Indian Flats, as found at 366 Weird Movies: "When a cowboy [Richard Marion
(1 Jul 1949 – 19 Jul 1999) as Eddie] is cheated out of his casino
winnings by the rough crowd at the local saloon, he drunkenly falls
asleep in a nearby stable, where he wakes up next to a strange mutant
sheep embryo. A scientist [E. Kerrigan Prescott
(25 Mar 1931 – 20 Jan 2009) as Prof. Clemens] comes across the pair and
transports them back to his cavern laboratory, where he attempts to
grow the sheep to full size in an effort to exploit its size and
strength for good — or evil. Meanwhile, a ruthless land baron [Stuart
Lancaster as Mayor Silverdale] schemes to keep his tight grip on his
town, using his power and wiles to shut down the machinations of
speculators from back east, particularly the credulous representative
sent to acquire the property."
"Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the petting zoo, you meet... Godmonster of Indian Flats! Written and directed by infamous outsider artist Frederic C. Hobbs (Alabama's Ghost [1973 / trailer]),
this is the story of an eight-foot-tall toxic sheep monster that blows
up gas stations, smashes crooked politicians, and terrorizes stoners!
From the sure 'wild west' locations to the outrageous monster effects, Godmonster of Indian Flats
is easily the most berserk, out-of-control, and inexplicable deranged
creature feature in the history of forever. This includes the scene
where the Godmonster crashes a children's picnic. In the words of
legendary filmmaker Frank Henenlotter, 'Get the straightjackets ready!' [Something Weird]
While it lasts —
the full movie:
E. Kerrigan Prescott (i.e., Prof. Clemens] may not be well-known, but his death in Fiend without a Face (1958 / trailer) is familiar to every American raised on after-school Creature Feature
broadcasts. More than valid arguments have been made that the New
Zealander Jonathan King's highly entertaining mutant-sheep horror flick Black Sheep (2006) is an unofficial remake — compare the Godmonster of Indian Flats plot description further above to Black Sheep's trailer below...
Trailer to
Black Sheep (2006):
Caged Heat
(1974, writ. & dir. Jonathan Demme)
![]()
Prior to this movie, future A-level filmmaker Jonathan Demme (22 Feb 1944 – 26 Apr 2017) had produced and co-scripted two films for Roger Corman, Joe Viola's Angels Hard as They Come (1971 / trailer) and Viola's The Hot Box (1972 / trailer), and also done some uncredited direction on two films, Fly Me (1973, see Dick Miller) and, supposedly, on the US release of Wolf Rilla's The Secrets of a Door-to-Door Salesman a.k.a. Naughty Wives (1973 / complete movie), but Caged Heat is his true feature-film directorial debut.
And what a debut! And what a cast! Caged Heat
has a truly droolable cast of cult sirens, led by the horror icon
Barbara Steele as the main female baddy, the prison superintendent
McQueen, and of course Erica Gavin, as the film's main identification
figure.
Caged Heat:
Despite her excellent turn as the film's nominal lead, Caged Heat
proved to be Ms. Gavin's finale role in a movie. As she later
explained, "I was just then in a relationship with Paul Fitzgerald, Los
Angeles Public Defender who represented Patricia Krenwinkel
at the Manson trail, and I wanted to be a good partner and I attended
the trial almost every day. It was probably my only real stab at being a
wife. No pun intended. Also, the social demands of being a so-called
starlet were putting a strain on my relationship. Just a lot of
Hollywood shit, to be general. My last attempt to break into the
'mainstream' was when I went to an interview at Warner Bros. to
interview for the part of Wonder Woman. Let's just say that I had an impolite experience. I just said, 'Okay, see ya.' [RockShockPop]"
"This
film is considered to be the one that made WIP movies a genre. The name
of it speaks for itself, so you won't be disappointed with what you
see. The picture features seductive Barbara Steele (of The Butterfly Room [2012], Sapphire[1959], Castle of Blood
[1964] and so much more) performing a wheelchair-bound warden. Apart
from this beautiful actress, the movie also offers the audience Erica
Gavin, performing the newbie who finds herself facing the mad doctors
shock tortures. Moreover, she will have to survive lesbians and even cat
fights [...]. Then, the plot keeps twisting, showing us the poor girl
again, who after cooperating with another inmate, finally manages to
break out. However, afterwards they will come back to bust out their
buddies. The plot and acting [...] used to be the model for around 90%
of the movies of this genre produced in the '80s. Still, the picture is
very promising for each fan of the genre. In other words, the film is a
must-have if you are a true WIP collector. [WIP Films]"
Another quick plot description can be had at the very NSFW website erogarga:
"Welcome to Connorville Penitentiary, a hellish prison for female
inmates run by a cruel warden (Barbara Steele) and lorded over by a
depraved doctor (Warren Miller) with a fondness for frontal lobotomies.
Smalltime criminal Jacqueline (Erica Gavin) finds herself in the middle
of all this madness, quickly teaming up with fellow inmates Maggie
(Juanita Brown of Black Starlet [1974, see Marilyn Joi], Foxy Brown [1974 / trailer] and Willie Dynamite [1974 / trailer]), Belle (Roberta Collins [17 Nov 1944 – 16 Aug 2008] of Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive [1976], Matt Cimbar's The Witch Who Came from the Sea [1976], Train to Hollywood [1975, see Phyllis Davis], Death Race 2000 [1975, see Dick Miller]; Wonder Women [1973, see Marilyn Joi] and The Roommates [1973, see The Great Uschi])
and Pandora (Ella Reid [15 Jan 1944 – 7 Aug 1999]) to make a break for
freedom and to even the score with their sadistic penal masters."
"Audiences
expecting another forgettable women's-prison drive-in feature were a
bit surprised to find politics and feminism mixed with the usual skin,
shocks, and lowbrow humor in this cult film. Female inmates escape the
sexual abuse and 'corrective physical therapy' of Connorville Maximum
Security Prison, rob a gang of bank robbers, take over the jail, and
rescue their friends. Barbara Steele is McQueen, the repressed,
crippled, sadistic warden who has a sexy cabaret-number dream. Inmates
include Juanita Brown, Roberta Collins, Russ Meyer star Erica Gavin, and
Rainbeaux Smith
(6 Jun 1955 – 25 Oct 2002). [...] The music, a mixture of moody viola
and country harmonica, is by John Cale. Evelyn Purcell, the producer,
was the wife of Jonathan Demme, here making his first film. [Psychotronic Encyclopedia]."
"Caged Heat
is inspired from start to finish. Granted, Demme is somewhat limited by
the requirements of the women's-prison genre. Erica Gavin plays a new
inmate [...] in a story that hits all the standard beats — right down to
the requisite shower scenes and escape attempts. But Demme fashions
this material into a loose-but-powerful feminist statement, as Gavin and
her mates find ways to help each other on the sly, while steering clear
of authorities who handle upstart women by lobotomizing them. Even the
villainous Steele is presented as a victim of the system, handicapped
both literally and metaphorically. Beyond the theme, though, Caged Heat's
style is striking. Demme and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto move the
camera frequently and dynamically, and use expressionistic lighting to
accentuate the movie's multiple dream sequences. John Cale's minimalist
violin-and-harmonica score creates a mood halfway between 'down home'
and 'fever dream,' while Demme's script works in dirty jokes and
multiple absurdist touches, like the greenish slop the inmates are
forced to eat for their meals. Altogether, this is more art than trash,
and though [Roger] Corman had no mandate to produce masterpieces, he
stood apart from others of his ilk in that he didn't mind his employees
showing off their genius, so long as they did it cheaply and turned a
profit. [AV Club]"
And thus, Erica Gavin ended her film career with another cultural highpoint. Years later, Caged Heat suddenly got followed by two in-name-only sequels, Cirio H. Santiago's Caged Heat II: Stripped of Freedom (1994 / trailer) and Aaron Osborne's Caged Heat 3000 (1995). Neither are a cultural highpoint.
For more on the making of Caged Heat from Erica Gavin's point of view, check out the article cum interview at her website.
Playboy: The Story of X
(1998, dir. Chuck Workman)![]()
Chuck Workman began his career with a few less than auspicious and somewhat sloppy fiction films, Atlantic City Jackpot (1976 / trailer) and Cuba Crossing (1980 / trailer), not mention the WTF comedy Stoogemania (1985 / trailer below), after which he concentrated on documentaries.
WTF?
Stoogemania trailer:
Not many people have bothered to write about this Playboy video project now available on DVD. As for a description of the documentary, if no one else Letterboxdis always there when in need: "The Story Of X takes
you to the earliest days of adult films when men peddled stag reels and
projectors out of the trunks of their cars, then through the movie
house years to the arrival of the home video business, and now the
Internet. Meet the men behind the camera, such as 'King of
Sexploitation'Dave Friedman
and the preeminent breast man Russ Meyer. Considered pariahs at the
time, they're now hailed as pioneers in the fight against censorship. The Story of X
visits the 60s when women's rights, not nudity, became the issue and
recounts porn's arrival in Hollywood, led by director Bernardo
Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972 / trailer). In the 70s, several groundbreaking films, including Behind the Green Door (1972 / opening titles) featuring Marilyn Chambers and Deep Throat (1972 / trailer) featuring Linda Lovelace, took the genre to a new level."
Theme to
Deep Throat:
While it lasts: a "screener copy" currently available for viewing at the Internet Archives. Erica Gavin appears as "herself"— which means she's in some of the film footage used (from the Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
trailer shoot). We haven't gotten far into the documentary yet — it
seems rather padded and pointless and condescending — but she doesn't
seem to appear as a talking head. Buck Henry has the rent-paying job as
host.
For a brief discussion of porn of the past, may we suggest you look at a wasted life's non-pornographic Short Film of the Month for July 2012, The Unexpected Experience of Two Girl Hitch-Hikers (c. 1940s). Also, after seeing the three-second reference in the video to our Short Film of the Month for March 2016, you could also check out Dwaine Esper's How to Undress in Front of Your Husband (1937).
Sex at 24 Frames Per Second
(2003, dir. Kevin Burns & Steven C. Smith)![]()
Five years later, another Playboy video documentary, this time from Kevin Burns
(18 June 1955 – 27 Sept 2020) and Steven C. Smith, two specialists of
sycophantic docs. Again Erica Gavin appears only in archive footage —
guess which Russ Meyer flick it is? They also offer her thanks for still
photos.
Over at Combustible Celluloid, a sycophantic-sounding Jeffrey M. Anderson gives the "titillating" documentary three out of four stars: "No one but Playboy could make this straightforward history of sex in film, starting with silent peepshows, Hedy Lamarr, Mae West and the Hays Code and moving up to Basic Instinct (1992 / trailer), Showgirls (1995 / trailer) and Unfaithful (2002 / trailer).
Who else could get away with showing all those sex scenes? The
documentary discusses America's changing attitudes towards sex over the
years and how cinema re-invented itself to mesh with the changing times.
Ironically, even this DVD comes in both 'R' rated and 'Unrated'
versions."
Sex at 24 Frames Per Second:
Rarelustexplains
the intention of the documentary: "[The] documentary [is] about the way
sex was and is deliberately used in cinema to influence and manipulate
human behaviour and development. This documentary uses real examples
including the decline of Mae West's career; the introduction of a
ratings system; and enforced creative controls, eventually leading to a
billion dollar sub-culture of pornography and art-house movies."
The Kiss (1896):
Among the early films mentioned and shown: a famous short directed in April 1896 for Thomas Edison: William Heise's The Kiss. Selected, due to its cultural significance, for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress
in 1999, the approx. 18-second-long short features the scandalous
highpoint from the final scene of John J. McNally's musical comedy, The Widow Jones.
The kissing couple in the film, the first couple to ever kiss on film,
are the same kissing couple in the then running stage production, May Irwin (27 June 1862 – 22 Oct 1938) and John C. Rice (1858 – 5 June 1915) — so, arguably, The Kiss
is also the first filmic advertisement. May Irwin also recorded a few
tunes in her day, but for whatever reason — maybe they were the only
type she sang? — the few recorded songs of hers that a wasted life found online are incredible offensive... indeed, the title on the cover sheet below is less offensive than this song here.
.jpg)
The Copper Scroll of Mary Magdalene
(2004, dir. Larry Buchanan)
See: The Rebel Jesus
(sorta 1971, dir. Larry Buchanan) further above. Same film, same story.
The newspaper advertisement above is to a different movie, naturally...
3 Stories about Evil
(2008, dir. Michael Frost)
After
more than four decades, Erica Gavin came out of the woodwork to do one
of the three episodes of this independent, and experimental, horror
portmanteau short film — despite three tales, the whole project clicks
in under a half-hour. "3 Stories about Evil is a narrative short
film shot almost entirely with still photographs in 3 different
photographic formats. All three stories are very black comedies about
family, the media and children's beauty pageants. [DCI Film Festival]"
The use of still photographs to tell a narrative in film has its history, of course. Any fan of the movie 12 Monkeys (1995 / trailer), for example, surely knows the source of that film' narrative, Chris Marker's science fiction short from 1962, Le Jetée...
Le Jetée,
the full film:
The detailed plot description of 3 Stories about Evil, as found at Wikipedia: "In the first, The Story of Johnnie & Laurie, Johnnie (Barry Brisco of Terror Firmer [1999 / trailer] and Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger Part IV [2000 / trailer]) is betrayed by his sister (Suzette Belouin of Killing Ariel [2008 / trailer]) when she finds out his sexual proclivities. When she informs her parents (Billy Drago [of Seven Mummies (2006), Pale Rider
[1985] and so much more] & Erica Gavin) about his homosexuality,
their estrangement leads Johnnie through a series of unsavory incidents.
In The Story of Pat & Pepper, Pat (Mink Stole of Pink Flamingos [1972] and Cecil B. Demented
[2000]) is a Christian conservative and her five-year-old daughter
Pepper (Pepper Peeters) participates in children's beauty pageants.
Ambivalent over her daughter's attractiveness to a pageant judge (Daylyn
Presley), Pat accidentally kills Pepper and transforms her into a dead
chanteuse. Finally, in The Story of Jim, Jim (Joey Krebs) takes
the advice of his best friend Eddie (Laurence Tolhurst) and gets a job
in the television industry. When Jim's career plummets due to poor
ratings, he finds a sex change operation the perfect solution out of a
desperate situation."
Over at RockShockPop, Erica Gavin explains how she got involved: "The reason I did 3 Stories
is I fell in love with the guy who asked me to do it. Michael Frost was
so real. I could really feel that he wanted me. And it was the same
feeling that I got from Jonathan Demme when he called and said he had a
part for me. It was basically for me. Demme had already cast me and
wanted to know if I'd be willing do it. That's how it was with Michael.
It was his sincerity that I liked. He didn't want to use me in any other
way than as an actress, what my job was. He didn't want me to take my
clothes off or to be in Vixen make-up or anything like that. It was a
different kind of part. And, it was Art, you know?"
Sugar Boxx
(2009, writ. & dir. Cody Jarrett)![]()
"Sugar Boxx is a progressive entry into the campy genre. It also appears to have been filmed in a picnic area. [Salon]" Russ Meyer legends Tura Satana and Kitten Natividad
(13 Feb 1948 – 24 Sep 2022) make appearances in this low-brow homage to
WIP films, while Erica Gavin receives a "Special Thanks".
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Trailer to
Sugar Boxx:
"For the most part [Sugar Boxx] makes Reform School Girls (1986) with Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics look like it was produced by Stanley Kramer. [Salon]" But: "If you're in the mood for a women's prison film, it satisfies. [Down Among the Z Movies]"Sugar Boxx appears to the last feature film project to date of Cody Jarrett, who shook the world with his first feature film project, Frog-g-g! (2004)
Music to
Frog-g-g!:
Over at AllMovie,
Jason Buchanan has the plot: "[T]his lurid, exploitation-style
women-in-prison flick [is] set in the sweltering Florida Everglades. The
year is 1975. The Sugar State Women's Facility is a place where
innocent girls are forced to work in the swamps under inhuman
conditions, and turn tricks for the warden once their spirits have been
broken. Here, corruption, brutality, and sexual abuse are a way of life.
But this penitentiary is a powder keg, and when undercover reporter
Valerie March (Geneviere Anderson of The Hillside Strangle [2004 / full movie])
manages to get inside, the fuse is lit. After staging a bloody revolt,
the furious inmates take their ultimate revenge. Should March live to
live through it all and pen her exposé of Sugar State, her story will
shock a nation."
"Sugar Boxx
is, at best, an average WIP film, with not enough nudity and a weak
plot with too many holes. The good WIP films at least features one or
the other [...]; the best of the genre combines both in just the right
amount [...]. Still, Sugar Boxx can be quite entertaining if
looked at from a purely exploitative angle, and the cheap thrills makes
the plot rather enjoyable. [WIP Films]"![]()
"Writer/director
Cody Jarrett gleefully submits leading lady Anderson and her fellow
actresses to much mayhem and misery before allowing them to achieve that
much-desired revenge. As a result, Sugar Boxx is marginally
violent, occasionally funny and aggressively stupid, while not fully
being able to embrace its drive-in roots. Having little money certainly
works to the movie's advantage, as does Jarrett's decision to fill
supporting parts with Russ Meyer starlets Kitten Natividad and Tura Satana, not to mention veteran WIP director Jack Hill (The Big Doll House [1971 / trailer] and The Big Bird Cage [1972, see Carol Speed]).
That said, a little more creativity is required to pull off the
pastiche/homage to the point where it looks as authentic as Jarrett no
doubt would like. [Flick Attack]"
For that, The Video Vacuum rated it as one of their Top 10 of 2009, among other reasons because: "Sugar Boxx
also has some of the best dialogue I've heard all year like, 'You've
seen more pricks than a porcupine!' and 'I'm here to liberate some ass!'
But by far the funniest part is when a guard gets fatally wounded and
one of the chicks offers to 'ease his pain' by giving him a blowjob. The
guard winds up cumming and going at the same time and dies with a big
smile on his face. When one of the girls mourns, 'He deserved better',
the chick wipes her chin and says, 'Deserved better? SHHIIIIT, I gave
him the hundred dollar special!' Again, this is one great movie."
Babes Behind Bars
(2013, dir. Charles Band)
Yet
another D2V "documentary" about women-in-prison films and their ilk,
directed by the contemporary bad and genre film stalwart Charles Band
(director of Head of the Family[1996]
and more) and "written" by Colin Rodgers. More than anything else, it
is simply a collection of WIP movie trailers, introduced by "far-right
MAGA loon" Scream Queen hostess Mindy Robinson.* Erica Gavin is there in the trailer for Caged Heat (1974)...
*"Robinson
ran in the Republican primary for Nevada's 3rd congressional district
in the 2020 election, finishing third. Robinson has promoted various
conspiracy theories on her Twitter [now X] account, including QAnon, the Clinton body count conspiracy theory, and a conspiracy theory regarding Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor and gun control activist David Hogg. [Wikipedia]" In other words, she a typical American: an anti-democracy shill.
Trailer to
Babes Behind Bars:
Film Affinity
has the production-house description: "Welcome to Babe Jail, where the
best shower a girl can get is from the warden's hose, and interrogation
always ends in intercourse! This outlandish compilation of trailers and
clips spotlights the women-in-prison sub-genre of grindhouse
exploitation films, which were most popular in the 70s and 80s. Hosted
by the illegally-sexy 'Roxie' and her demented ogre-of-a-cellmate,
'Lavondra,' you've been sentenced to watch the best of the most
degrading, perverse, and sadistically sexist filth ever sent to the
slammer. The prison bars may be cold, but the babes are hot!"
Video Vacuum
watched it and says, "Charles Band's Grindhouse Flix company has been
releasing some mighty fine trailer compilations as of late. Babes Behind Bars
[...] is no exception. While it's not perfect, it's hard to imagine any
Women in Prison fan (or trailer compilation fan) walking away
disappointed from this one. The Women in Prison genre is a vast one, but
Babes Behind Bars does a good job of covering all the angles.
Just about every classic Women in Prison movie is represented here.
[...] The film is hosted by Mindy Robinson, who appears on a cheap jail
set and makes lame jokes. [...]."
Trailer to
Reform School Girl:
The earliest trailer is for Reform School Girl (1957), with Yvette Vickers, and among the trailers shown are Joseph P. Mawra's White Slaves of Chinatown (1964), with Gigi Darlene; 99 Women (1969) with Maria Rohmand Herbert Lom; Sweet Sugar (1972) and Terminal Island (1973), both with Phyllis Davis; Black Mama White Mama (1973); Tom Desimone's Prison Girls (1972), with the Great Uschi; Barbed Wire Dolls (1976) and Ilsa The Wicked Warden (1977), both with Lina Romay; and...
Over at Letterbxed, Larry Yoshida, who would have preferred a different host, points out that "If you want actual insight into the genre watch Machete Maidens Unleashed (2010)."
Trailer to
Machete Maidens Unleashed:
Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies
(2020, dir. Danny Wolf)
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Common Sense Media thinks: "Parents need to know that Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies
is a documentary that chronicles the history of nudity on film. It
covers everything from famously controversial titles to iconic nude
scenes [...]. As you might expect, there's lots of video footage of
topless, bottomless, and full-frontal nudity in movies; clips span the
full history of cinema. While some of the featured nudity is nonsexual,
the majority of it is sexual and/or voyeuristic. The filmmakers
interview various industry folks, the actors (mostly female) who
disrobed, and culture and film critics who explain the significance and
context of the trends in nudity. One of the movie's executive producers
is Mr. Skin,
the popular website that catalogs footage of on-screen nudity, but the
movie isn't as salacious as you might think. Expect plenty of candid
conversations with older actresses who share their early experiences
doing nude scenes and who express gratitude for the fact that younger
actors no longer have to do nudity to get roles. Language isn't frequent
but includes 't-ts,''retarded,' and more."
Trailer to
Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies:
Over at Combustible Celluloid, Jeffrey M. Anderson gives Skin three out of four stars, saying "Filmmaker Danny Wolf last brought us the massive, three-part, 5 1/2-hour Time Warp documentary (2019-2020), doing a deep-dig exploration of 47 different cult movies. His Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies
is much shorter, and covers much more ground, and thus it feels a bit
rushed in spots, and a bit thin overall. [...] It begins at the
beginning. One interviewee guesses that, moments after the motion
pictures were invented, someone probably had the idea to film someone
naked. The doc's best section goes into the establishing of the Hays
Code, which was more complex than even I knew about. Then it continues
on with filmmakers thinking up ways to get around the Code, leading up
to the 'nudie' films of the 1960s, exploitation movies, more mainstream
nudity in the 1970s, the long male nude scene in Borat (2006 / trailer),
and eventually, the #MeToo movement of the 2010s. [...] Best of all,
brilliant storyteller Malcolm McDowell is here to talk about his role as
the most-seen nude male of his time."
Among the talking heads: Erica Gavin. Among the things she tells, the oft-repeated tale about shooting the lesbian scene with Vincene Wallace in Vixen!"Russ was down on the floor, 'Give it to her, yeah!', pounding the
floor like this... and then he goes, 'Cut! Lunch! I've gotta change my
shorts.'" That's Vincene above, from Vixen!
Presented as the earliest surviving film to show a nudity scene on screen is Georges Méliès'Après le bal a.k.a After the Ball, the Bath
(1897). The short, embedded below, presents a servant preparing her
mistress for her bath, and then pouring "water" over her. (Though it is
claimed the woman, Georges Méliès' later wife Jehanne d'Alcy
[20 Mar 1865 – 14 Oct 1956] is "nude", you don't need glasses to see
that the "nude" woman is actually wearing a flesh-colored
bodystocking.)
Après le bal a.k.a
After the Ball, the Bath (1897):
Some
folks were disappointed with the doc: "There are certain parts of the
discussion that aren't addressed, and if they are, only minimally so.
The most problematic of these is the double standard that exists between
male and female nudity. While this issue does get some time,
specifically in relation to the controversy involving Midnight Cowboy (1969 / trailer), it's a much bigger issue resulting in a lot of exploitation of actresses (Disappointment Media)"![]()
In turn, Wherever I Looktakes
issue with how lily white the documentary is: "There is always this
weird tug as a non-white person when it comes to watching the history of
any industry, and you not necessarily feeling seen. What perhaps really
felt like a kick was that, outside of Pam Grier, there isn't any
mention of women of color. The Blaxploitation era is breezed over, and
the film doesn't seek to educate you on how nudity has played a role for
Black women, Asian women, Latinx, and others. [...] Heck, considering
there is a mention of Kathy Bates and older women doing nudity, as well
as women looking back who once did nudity but barely, or don't, any
longer, it would have been nice to include Angela Bassett, Halle Berry,
or someone to help mix things up a bit. [...] As much as I appreciate
the history and commentary, it all feels incomplete, and you have to
question if this was made with blinders on and an unwillingness to give a
full history rather than a whitewashed version."
Coming Next:
The Carrie Nations