(Not-So-)Short Takes: ‘Poppers’ (1984) ★★ ½

Poppers’ thumbnail image on Tubi is
 cheesy but at least it accurately
represents the movie.

The obscure 1984 Spanish-made thriller Poppers is not a gay-themed movie, but it is most definitely queer, in both senses of the word. For starters, there’s the title, which suggests amyl nitrate use figures into the story, except it doesn’t. Not once does anyone use poppers, even in a scene set in a gay bar. Maybe “poppers” has a different meaning in Spanish slang? According to my own Google search, it does not (drugs: the universal language). The movie’s alternate title, Hunting, makes a lot more sense, though the poster bearing that title is even more gay.

 This poster has little to do with the
movie I saw, but I very much wish it did.

And then there is the movie’s opening scene:

I could find nothing online to confirm definitively that Poppers’ writer-director José María Castellví (not that one) was in fact gay, but it’s hard to resist speculating. Opening your trashy thriller with a gratuitous shower scene featuring a sexy actress would be just another Tuesday in the world of exploitation cinema, but putting your male lead in a gratuitous shower scene suggests someone behind the camera is more interested in catering to male gays than the male gaze. Regardless of whether that someone was Castellví or maybe a producer, bless them.

Our well-washed male lead is Miguel Ortiz, who plays Santos, the lead singer-guitarist of a New Wave band. During a performance in a small club, he notices a guy hitting on his girlfriend. The power cuts out just as Santos lunges off stage. When the lights come back on the man flirting with Santos’s girlfriend has been stabbed to death. Given that we never actually see Santos kill the guy, I assumed that Santos was framed and finding the real killer would drive the story, but no, he did it. Santos is quickly convicted and sent to prison.

Santos doesn’t spend much time behind bars, however, paroled a mere two years later. Supposedly his early release is for good behavior, but it was actually arranged by Pablo Jordan (Alfredo Mayo), the very rich father of the Santos’s victim. One of Jordan’s quirks is keeping horses in the living room of his castle so he can watch birth of a foal and play with the afterbirth. So, really, should we be surprised he is hosting a hunting party in which Santos is the prey? Said hunting party includes a gay couple, prominent theater director Dan (Manuel de Blas) and his producer/boyfriend Max (José Luis de Vilallonga). Here are a couple scenes from one of Dan’s plays:

Again, this is not a gay movie.

Santos is given a bag of gems worth $1 million that’s his to keep if he escapes death, though members of the hunting party make it clear that they don’t intend to let that happen. They also make it clear that Santos doesn’t have a choice in participating, which makes one wonder why Jordan went to the trouble to pay a beautiful club dancer named Lola (Giannina Facio, a.k.a. Mrs. Ridley Scott, in her film debut) to seduce Santos the night before to put him in a more agreeable mood. The answer: to provide the movie with an explicit-as-an-R-rating-will-allow sex scene.

That R rating doesn’t permit Miguel Ortiz to go full-frontal,
but he still shows plenty.

Remarkably, Santos successfully escapes with the gems, though we’re never shown exactly how Santos eludes the hunters. Just accept that he does. Santos reconnects with Lola after an extended scene of her dancing for an all-male audience of skinheads in a club that includes a pen full of goats as part of the décor. (Goddamn, this place must reek; no wonder Lola doesn’t care that her dressing room is in the men’s room). Santos calls Lola a cunt, and she immediately offers to help him exact revenge on the remaining old Fascists. Romance blooms as the couple systematically kill off the old men, sometimes cross-dressing to gain their confidence (Ortiz makes a fairly convincing, if matronly, woman, but no one with eyes would mistake Facio for a leather boy).

Max (José Luis de Vilallonga) is about to get impaled,
but not in the way he hopes.

Though Poppers has plenty of WTF moments, it never quite delivers as a movie. It’s a toss-up what viewers will hate more, the characters (assholes all) or the persistent synthpop soundtrack that’s at odds with the movie’s punk aesthetic. There is not enough tension in the Most Dangerous Game first half, and there’s virtually none at all in the second half, with Castellví favoring bloody/kinky set pieces over suspense. Still, the movie is well shot (Castellví was an established photographer before directing Poppers) and I’m a sucker for WTF moments, to say nothing of well-built men in gratuitous shower scenes. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone, but for a specific type of audience (you know who you are) Poppers is a must-see. Happy Pride!

Short Takes: ‘One from the Heart’ (1982) ★★

Critics and audiences didn’t like
it when it was released in 1982
and I don't like it now.

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1982 film One from the Heart stars Frederic Forrest, Terri Garr, Raul Julia and Nastassja Kinski, but the only credit that matters appears at the very end of the movie: “Filmed entirely on the stages of Zoetrope Studios.”

One from the Heart is set in Las Vegas, a place that exists in real life, but rather than just film the fucker on location like a normal person, Coppola chose to recreate, at no small expense, the city on his own soundstages. Coppola’s Vegas is dazzling, more fantastical—and significantly cleaner—than the real thing. Angelo P. Graham has art directed the shit out of this place! And each scene, often bathed in neon pinks, blues, yellows and greens, is lovingly captured by cinematographers Ronald Victor Garcia and Vittorio Storaro. If we watched movies to admire the sets and cinematography, One from the Heart would be a must-see. 

Most of us, however, watch movies for the characters and story, and One from the Heart doesn’t have much of either. Forrest and Garr play Hank and Frannie respectively, longtime lovers who get in a fight all of a sudden (something about Hank buying Frannie a house with their money and dragging his feet about taking her to Bora Bora) and split up. Frannie storms off to stay with her friend Maggie (Lainie Kazan), while Hank goes to his friend Moe (an under-utilized Harry Dean Stanton) to drown his sorrows. Hank and Frannie spend the rest of the movie trying to decide if they should get back together or start new lives with the new people they meet on the Fourth of July: Hank a beautiful young circus performer (Kinski), Frannie a charming waiter/aspiring singer (Julia). This might’ve sustained my interest if I gave a shit about any of them, but I was more invested in checking how much time remained until the final credits, disappointed that each time I checked it was more than I hoped. This was a very long sit, and I watched the shorter 99-minute version (the original cut was 103 minutes).

Had the movie been the musical comedy it’s labeled as, One from the Heart could’ve worked, yet it only looks like one. Though it’s got a pervasive (and admittedly pretty great) soundtrack supplied by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle, I wouldn’t call it a musical. And comedies are usually funny; One from the Heart is only irritating, with Forrest acting like a discount Stanley Kowalski and Garr spending most of the movie in a sputtering dither. Audiences didn’t like it when it was released in 1982 and I don’t like it now, critical reappraisal be damned. Still, it looks great (80% of the reason behind my two-star rating) and, if nothing else, it’s shorter than Megalopolis.

Short Takes: ‘Only Good Things’ (2025) ★★★

Is it enigmatic, or just pretentious? More
importantly, does either matter when you
get to see Liev Carlos and Lucas
Drummond naked?

It’s difficult to praise the work of Brazilian writer-director Daniel Nolasco without getting defensive. I liked his 2020 feature Dry Wind (a.k.a. Vento Seco), digging Nolasco’s 1970s-Joe Gage-meets-1980s-neon-noir aesthetic and how he presents gay desire like a 1980s queer teen-ager who just got his hands on a copy of Honcho. However, the explicitness of the movie—and I’m talking about the uncut version I wished I’d purchased when the DVD was still in print, not the edited version streaming on Prime and Dekkoo—makes it easy for cinema snobs (not The Cinema Snob) to dismiss Nolasco as just a high class pornographer, as if that’s a bad thing.

Nolasco’s 2025 film Only Good Things (a.k.a. Apenas Coisas Boas) has many of the elements of Dry Wind: vivid photography, attractive actors with an exhibitionist streak, and trans actress Renata Cavalho, albeit in a significantly smaller role. However, Nolasco’s narrative is less direct this time out, which makes it harder to embrace. I liked it upon reflection, but I can see it pissing off many viewers. My three-star rating is generous.

Only Good Things opens in 1984, when Marcelo (curly-haired cutie Liev Carlos) crashes his motorcycle while riding through the Brazilian countryside, the cause of the accident as odd as it is startling. He’s discovered by a passing rancher, Antônio (Lucas Drummond, really selling that ’stache), who takes the unconscious biker back to his rustic farmhouse to tend to his injuries, as well as admire his cock and taste his blood (how Saltburn!). Later, when Marcelo is still impaired enough to require assistance undressing for a shower but healed enough to get horny, it’s Antônio’s cock that gets admired. And tasted (no money shot, though).

A romance develops, though Antônio is wary, certain Marcelo will leave him at any moment. “There’s nothing here for you,” he reminds Marcelo repeatedly, almost daring him to go. But what threatens this relationship isn’t Marcelo possibly growing bored with farm life but by Antônio’s homophobic father stepping up his intimidation tactics in an attempt to force his son to sell his land, the escalation leading to tragedy.

Though the first half of the movie moves slowly, with a little too much time devoted to capturing Antônio’s routine (milking cows, herding cattle, cheese making), I was very much invested in his story. Then there’s a time jump to present day. Antônio, now played by Fernando Libonati, is in his sixties, living in a São Paulo high rise and seemingly inhabiting a completely different film. The switch is jarring, and it initially turned me against the movie, never mind that the second half also features some full-frontal nudity from Igor Leoni, as Antônio’s assistant Eduardo. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that Antônio is an unreliable narrator. That realization led to a kinder view of the movie. Still, I prefer the movie’s first half, even if it is belied by its second. 

Short Takes: ‘Scorchy’ (1976) ★ ½

Connie Stevens was never meant to
yell “Freeze! Police!” unironically.

I don’t want to suggest that police departments only hire women with voices in the Bea Arthur or Margo Martindale range, but if you’re casting a female detective in your crime drama and you want her to be taken seriously, it helps if she doesn’t sound like a 16-year-old girl. Of course, no one was taking the AIP movie Scorchy all that seriously to begin with, least of all its writer-director, schlockteur Howard Avedis, so maybe the ludicrousness of Connie Stevens as a tough-as-nails (yet bubbly and horny!) detective doesn’t matter.

Stevens plays Jackie Parker—supposedly nicknamed Scorchy but never once addressed as such—a Seattle-based narcotics agent out to bust a drug ring involving Philip Bianco (Cesare Danova) and Carl Henrich (William Smith, wonderfully nasty as always). Bianco fronts as an art dealer, importing rare sculptures that are stuffed with heroin, then having Henrich, acting as an art restorer, remove the drugs when they reach stateside, confiscating the sculpture from its new owner if needed, as happens when said sculpture is delivered to an aging film star played by Joyce Jameson. If that sounds unnecessarily convoluted, that’s because it is, but how else are they going to work in a joke about the film star being a closet lesbian?

Anyway, an undercover Jackie befriends Bianco’s wife Claudia (Marlene Schmidt, also in Avedis’s The Teacher) and gets enlisted to fly the drugs out of state (yeah, she’s a pilot, too), but then Henrich takes off with the smuggled smack. Henrich’s double-cross kicks off an extended chase sequence that almost makes Scorchy worth watching, if only to see a nervous-looking Stevens behind the wheel of a rally car (context doesn’t matter). The other reason people might want to see this movie is for a few scenes featuring the star of Parrish and Susan Slade topless, scenes Stevens clearly was not comfortable doing. She also has a sex scene with a young, tragically coiffed Greg Evigan in his film debut (and no, he doesn’t show any skin), though it looks more like Stevens is being restrained by Evigan than fucking him. Hot.

I have a weakness for seeing stars of the 1950s and ’60s in 1970s exploitation movies, which was why I wanted to see Scorchy, despite all the warnings against it. To her credit, Stevens, who’s like a Joey Heatherton with significantly fewer scandals, isn’t bad, she’s just miscast as someone who must yell, “Freeze! Police!” and expect to be obeyed (though still more believable than Melanie Griffith in 1992’s A Stranger Among Us). I might’ve given Scorchy another half star had it been 85 or 90 minutes, but it’s a heavily padded one hour and 39 minutes, the extra time used to kill Scorchy’s potential as cheesy ’70s fun and leaving the audience with a meandering muddle instead.

Short Takes: ‘Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso’ (2025) ★★ ½

Watching Latin Blood: The Ballad of Ney Matogrosso (a.k.a. Homem com H) wasn’t the first time I wondered about the logistics of filming R-rated rim jobs (that would be when I watched the HBO series Looking), but it was the first time I was prompted to do some online research on the subject. And now I know that yes, there are modesty garments that cover actors’ buttholes, dashing any notions I had that Jesuíta Barbosa (as Ney Matogrosso) and Bruno Montaleone (as Marco, the tragic lover) were staring directly into each other’s naked assholes when filming their sex scene.

Sorry, I really shouldn’t begin a review obsessing about the particulars of filming simulated sex, but it was top of mind when I finished watching Latin Blood. The movie is not about actors tossing salad, however. It’s a biopic about queer Brazilian singer Ney Matogrosso, known as much for his outrageous costuming and androgynous appearance as for his voice.

That Matogrosso (né Ney de Souza Pereira) rose to such heights is a testament his determination as much as his talent, given that his father, portrayed in the film by Rômulo Braga, was a harsh, borderline abusive, disciplinarian who seemed determined to break the young Ney’s will at every turn. Then again, proving our parents wrong can be a powerful motivator. After brief stints in the military and performing in a Brasilia college choral group (and having an affair with an older man), Matogrosso moves to Rio de Janeiro in the late 1960s, where he ultimately joins the rock group Secos & Molhados (Dry Ones & Wet Ones), becoming its art director as well as its lead singer. The band is an immediate hit, yet while it owes much of its success to Matogrosso’s stage presence, the film suggests the Secos & Molhados’ founding members—both straight—wanted him to tone it down. Instead, Matogrosso goes solo, to even greater success.

Director Esmir Filho, who co-wrote the script with Laura Malin, has crafted an entertaining film, featuring some superb performances, especially from Barbosa, and a few questionable wigs. It’s not a very impactful film, however. The problem with biopics that go from cradle to grave—or cradle to present day, in this case—is they tend to play like highlight reels. Latin Blood rapidly cycles through Matogrosso’s life, from 1949 to present, barely allowing the audience time to get its bearings before jumping to the next decade, only slowing down for the 1970s. Characters appear with little introduction—perhaps, in the case of Cazuza (Jullio Reyes), because the filmmakers believe none is needed. But if you’re unfamiliar with Brazilian musicians of the ’70s and ’80s, you’ll think he’s just one of Matogrosso’s fuck buddies, until it’s revealed in another time jump that he was a famous singer in his own right, and an AIDS casualty a scene after that. There is no time for tears, however. Latin Blood quickly hops to another moment in Matogrosso’s life as it races to a finale concert by the real, present-day Matogrosso.

You may get more out of Latin Blood if you’re already a fan of Matogrosso’s music. If not, at least appreciate that, despite often playing out like a Wikipedia page with sex, nudity and a soundtrack album, it’s not some Bohemian Rhapsody PG-13 bullshit.

Short Takes: ‘Mascara’ (1987) ★★

Mascara was distributed by
Cannon Films, but it’s clear
director Patrick Conrad wanted it
to be part of the Artificial Eye/
Curzon catalog.

Mascara comes sooo close to being great Eurotrash. It ticks all the right boxes: Sexual secrets! Murder! Sleazy set-pieces! Michael Sarrazin in drag! Unfortunately, Belgian director Patrick Conrad decided to aim for the art house crowd, so prepare for your exploitation expectations to get doused by a cold glass of pretension and boredom.

Wealthy Gaby Hart (Charlotte Rampling) and police director Bert Sanders (Sarrazin) are an elite, opera loving couple, but fuck Gaby, this movie is about Bert. While watching a performance of Orpheus and Eurydice, Bert becomes transfixed—not by the lead diva’s performance but her costume (think Bob Mackie if he were designing for a more modest Cher). He immediately approaches costume designer Chris (Derek de Lint) about borrowing the gown for a friend to wear at her birthday party. Chris refuses, but he’s as transfixed by Gaby as Bert is by the gown, so he relents thinking that doing so will further ingratiate himself with her. Except, surprise, the friend Chris has in mind is not Gaby but Pepper (Eva Robins).

Other surprises follow, as well as a fair amount of sleaze and murder. Bert wants Pepper to wear the gown as she lip-syncs opera on stage at Mister Butterfly, a literal underground club featuring a variety of sexual nonconformists and kinky exhibitions, including an extra from Cats giving bloody blowjobs, an androgynous man eating oysters from a gimp’s mouth, and a man lowering his jock-strapped ass over a woman’s face (at least I think it’s a woman; the genders of the performers are often as murky as the lighting). You’d think with all these titillating sideshows that Pepper’s performance would be ignored, but the audience is spellbound, especially Bert, who appears a little turned on. Yet when Pepper offers her naked body to him (“I know all there is to know…about the crying game”), Bert is enraged that she’d think he’s anything other than heterosexual and kills her. When his attempt to dump the body is interrupted, he decides the best way to cover up the crime is to kill other trans performers and frame Chris.

Just as things are getting interesting, Gaby and Chris begin an affair. A very calm, tasteful affair. It’s the type of affair that would drive you back to your spouse, just to spice things up. What I’m trying to say is Gaby and Chris’s relationship is tragically dull, and a tragic waste of Rampling, who has little to do other than strut through the movie wearing chic-for-their-time pantsuits and smile enigmatically. At the risk of spoiling things (skip to the next paragraph now if you must), the character of Gaby would’ve been better used as Bert’s co-conspirator rather than the movie’s tragic heroine.

Mascara sort of reminded me of the 1989 giallo Arabella: Black Angel, if Arabella tried to be classy. Fortunately, Arabella knew what it was. Mascara, like its main character Bert, wants to keep its salacious subject matter at an arm’s distance when it would’ve done better to fully embrace it. As it is, Romy Haag’s Marianne Faithfull-at-half-price cover of Kris Kristofferson’s “Help Me Make It Through the Night” will likely stick with you longer than the movie’s Madonna music video-style kink. 

Short Takes: ‘Butterflies in Heat’ (1979) ★ ½

In 1986 Butterflies in Heat appeared
on video store shelves as Tropic of Desire
(no, not that one), masquerading
as a sexy romance.

I’ll give this much to Butterflies in Heat, the 1979 film adaptation of Darwin Porter’s 1976 novel: it’s got a hell of an opening shot. The first thing we see onscreen is a close-up of the lead actor’s crotch, his jeans adorned with an elaborate butterfly patch placed over the spot where the head of his dick rests. OK, I’m intrigued.

That lead actor is 1970s model Matt Collins, who plays Numie Chase, a hustler who’s come down to Key West, Florida, to put as many miles as possible between him and a potential murder charge in New York City. While there he meets Lola (the incomparable Eartha Kitt), a nightclub singer who loves white wigs, referring to herself in the third person, and pretty young men like Numie. However, she has no intention of paying for it (“People pay Lola,” she informs him). Numie then spots Anne (bland Roxanne Gregory), sitting alone in a corner of the same tawdry club, his interest in her strictly recreational. Anne resists his advances, but only because she is afraid of incurring the wrath of her domineering mother, Leonora (Barbara Baxley), supposedly a very rich and very famous fashion designer though her decaying mansion suggests the money and fame are disappearing fast. Numie instead settles for fucking (off-screen) Anne’s no-so-closeted husband (Numie says he doesn’t usually service dudes, but the watch he’s offered as payment is valued at $1,000). Rounding out the cast of characters is Leonora’s plus-sized housekeeper/assistant Tangerine (Pat Carroll), who is willing to pay for Numie’s body but settles for his friendship instead, and Sheriff Webb (Bert Williams), who appears periodically to rough up Numie and arrest him on spurious charges.

Butterflies in Heat—the book and the movie—sounds like the kind shit I’d love. It’s Tennessee Williams via glory hole or, at the very least, a queer 92 in the Shade. Instead, I found both to be tedious and frustrating. I bought a copy of Porter’s novel when it was re-released in the mid-1990s with a cover more befitting a gay porn video, my hopes high that I’d found some trash I could truly treasure. I barely made it through 75 pages before giving up. Porter, it turned out, was more interested in having his female (and female-presenting) characters deliver paragraphs of fanciful dialog than in Numie unleashing the monster caged within his butterfly-festooned jeans. Its gay sensibility was aimed not at bath house sluts, as its X-rated cover art suggested, but at drag cabaret queens.

I likely would have been just as disappointed if I bought
the 1976 paperback edition of Butterflies in Heat (left),
but at least that cover doesn't arouse expectations as high—
and as hard—as the raunchy cover for the 1997 edition.

Director Cash Baxter’s movie adaptation similarly let me down despite all it had going for it. Though the film’s budget is obviously meager, the production is fittingly seedy, and the cast of mostly TV veterans doubles its value. Kitt’s Lola—a drag queen in the book but more ambiguous here—is almost single-handedly worth the price of admission. Carroll, a character actor perhaps best-known today as the voice of Ursula in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, takes what could easily be described as The Shelley Winters Role and makes the character Tangerine her own. The least interesting performances are by Collins and Gregory, but then they are saddled with Butterflies’ least interesting characters. Though screenwriters Tony (Point of Terror) Crechales and George (The Killing Kind) Edwards reign in the book’s long-winded dialog, they also water down its gay appeal and any potential the movie had of becoming a camp classic. And forget any sexy fun. The movie’s one (one!) sex scene is fairly tepid, with only Gregory showing any skin. Despite everyone lusting after Numie, Collins, who sort of resembles Nathan Fillion in his Firefly days, seldom takes off his shirt, let alone his pants.

Butterflies in Heat was released on video in 1986 under the title Tropic of Desire—“not to be confused with the same-named porno movie,” the IMDb trivia page cheekily warns. Likely anyone renting the porn movie by mistake would’ve been less disappointed. At least that Tropic of Desire delivers what it promises; not so this cock tease of a movie.

Short Takes: ‘Mr. Wonderful’ (2022) ★ ½

Shouldn’t documentaries have a point? One would think so, but then one isn’t Larry Costa, the director of Mr. Wonderful, a 47-minute documentary which purports to tell the story of Charles Phillips, a middle-aged gay man, presumably unhoused, with a long rap sheet, substance abuse issues, and delusions of grandeur.

Phillips’ stream-of-consciousness rambling about his past is oddly compelling, even if it’s clear that much of it is bullshit. Costa juxtaposes Phillips’ tales of resisting a marriage proposal with his many mugshots, as well as a list of his many charges (DUI, drug dealing, abduction). When Phillips talks of helping older people, Costa inserts text on screen revealing that Phillips was convicted in 2010 of abusing a 65-year-old neighbor. Often, the onscreen text is sarcastic, e.g., when Phillips loses his place in his story (“Damn, that reefer good!”), the text on the right hand on the screen reads “Intelligent!” When Phillips finds his place in that story and talks of being hired as a butler/gofer for a wealthy man, replacing his predecessor to whom Phillips regularly sold crack and ass (crack and crack?), because he showed “respect, honesty and loyalty” to his client’s boss, the text on screen reads: “Tip: Get friend fired, then take his job.” Phillips also has ambitions of being a rap artist, which Costa encourages, offering him a chance to record a few tracks, but it’s clear Costa is more interested in getting footage of Phillips making an ass of himself than helping him pursue his dream. Phillips biggest failure as a rapper, by the way, is his inability to stay focused long enough to spit out more than a single bar.

Wisely, Costa refrains from the snarky chyrons when Phillips graphically recounts the sexual abuse he endured at the hands of his mother’s boyfriend when he was 6 years old. It’s also one of the few times Phillips is likely telling the truth. Had this documentary been about LGBTQ+ homelessness or queer sex workers, the abuse revelations might have been allowed to provide insight into Phillips’ life of bad choices. But that’s not a story Costa is interested in telling; he just wants the viewer to know Charles Phillips is full of shit.

Charles Phillips doesn’t necessarily deserve viewers’ sympathy, but viewers do deserve a real documentary. Mr. Wonderful has more in common with a YouTube video of teens ridiculing homeless people in the park for views, only it’s not that honest.

Short Takes: ‘Murder by Phone’ (1982) ★★ ½

The days before caller I.D. were
indeed terrifying.

While there have been plenty of thrillers and horror movies built around scary phone calls (Sorry, Wrong Number; When a Stranger Calls; Scream) and a few where the phone is a conduit to an evil force (976-Evil and The Ring-with-a-wireless-plan One Missed Call), to my knowledge the Canadian-made Murder by Phone (a.k.a. Bells) is the only movie to feature, well, murders by phone. And there may be a reason why there have been no other killer phone movies afterwards: Phones just aren’t all that scary, especially when potential victims can simply hang up.

Despite a silly concept, director and co-writer Michael Anderson (Around the World in 80 Days, Logan’s Run, Orca) managed to turn out an engaging-in-spite-of-itself thriller. Helping sell the story is the late Richard Chamberlain at peak fuckability (it’s bearded Richard Chamberlain, which is the best Richard Chamberlain), who stars as a college science teacher/environmental activist Nat Bridger. While attending a conference in Toronto Bridger investigates the death of one of his former students at the request of her father. The former student’s death was ruled a heart attack, but Bridger and the girl’s father aren’t buying it since she was only 19. We know from the movie’s opening scene that what killed her was her answering a ringing pay phone [link for younger readers] that then emitted a high-pitched whine that, apparently, immobilized her while she bled from her nose and eyes before a blast of electricity is shot directly into her ear, sending her flying across a subway platform and onto a nearby escalator.

Several more people die this way, with some of the kills being unintentionally hilarious, such as a very Mac and Me scene in which an executive is sent flying through an upper floor window of an office high rise, still seated in his desk chair. Bridger pieces together that the calls are being perpetrated by a person who has somehow devised a way to send high-voltage blasts through the telephone lines (just go with it), but phone company execs stonewall him when he goes to them with his concerns, turning Murder by Phone into an awkward conspiracy thriller. Bridger’s trip to the phone company isn’t for naught, however. While there he meets R.T. (Sarah Botsford), an artist creating a mural in the lobby of the phone company’s headquarters, who assists him in his investigation as well as becoming his love interest.

I first learned about this movie when the Glorious Trash blog reviewed Phone Call, Jon Messmann’s novelization of this movie’s script published a full year before the movie was filmed in 1980, and three years before its release in the U.S. Glorious Trash described the book as “sluggish” and “more deadening than thrilling,” before launching into a tirade about Bridger being written as a hardcore environmentalist <sigh>. Even dismissing the right wing complaints, the book sounds like a chore to read. The movie, though, is well-paced and entertaining. Chamberlain and Botsford, besides being easy on the eyes, keep things grounded by playing it straight, while supporting actors John Houseman, as Bridger’s pompous mentor, and Gary Reineke, as a skeptical police lieutenant, give more outsized performances befitting a B-movie. Anderson’s stylish direction also helps, even wringing (or is that ringing?) some genuine tension from the goofy premise.

Though I’d be among the first to buy this movie if Vinegar Syndrome ever got ahold of it for a Blu-ray release (hint, hint), I’d also be the first to admit that it doesn’t fully work. The movie’s story would’ve been easier to buy had there been a supernatural/paranormal cause behind killer phones. No matter how much science-y sounding dialog the movie throws at us, it just can’t convince us someone could kill via landline. Even more far-fetched: Bridger, who has a Ph.D., allowing people to address him Mister Bridger without once correcting them. I call bullshit.

Short Takes: ‘In the Eye of the Hurricane’ (1971) ★★★

Ruth (Analía Gadé), a wealthy, well-put-together blonde with a fondness for beige fashions and Kent cigarettes, leaves her husband Michel (Tony Kendall) for Paul (Jean Sorel). It appears to be an amicable separation. Michel tries to persuade Ruth to stay—or at least stay long enough for a farewell fuck—but then politely steps aside when Paul arrives to take Ruth away to “the villa.” The lovers’ first few days at the seaside mansion are blissful, though Ruth (and the audience) doesn’t know what to make of the sudden appearance of Paul’s gigolo friend Roland (Maurizio Bonuglia), but she quickly warms up to him always hanging around the movie’s periphery. Less so Danielle (Rosanna Yanni), the sexually ambiguous redhead who’s rented the house next door.

But there are more unwelcome developments threatening Ruth’s happiness than a layabout stud with a pencil ’stache or a shapely switch-hitter, such as narrowly avoiding a deadly crash when her brakes give out while speeding along a narrow highway, and almost asphyxiating when her scuba tank runs out of air during a diving expedition. Both incidents are dismissed as coincidental malfunctions, but Ruth is sure that someone is trying to kill...Paul. It’s only later that she realizes she’s the one who’s In the Eye of the Hurricane (a.k.a. El ojo del huracán).

Even the poster art for In the Eye of the Hurricane
and Paranoia complement each other.

This Spanish-Italian co-production had been on my watchlist for a while, and so it was a pleasant surprise when it popped up on Tubi, under the title The Fox with the Velvet Tail. It’s more a Eurotrash thriller than giallo, which is fine by me. If you liked Umberto Lenzi’s 1969 thriller Paranoia (a.k.a. Orgasmo)—and I count it among my favorites—then you should enjoy In the Eye of the Hurricane. In fact, Paranoia and Hurricane would make a great double feature, as both movies share a lot of similarities: beautiful rich women living in secluded villas, lovers with suspect motives, semi-explicit sex scenes, and bratty bisexual babes.

But as much as Paranoia and Hurricane complement each other, they are not equal. Paranoia is better, but Hurricane is classier. Not only does Hurricane director José María Forqué present his leading lady in a more glamorous light, he also injects his movie with a lot of visual style, such as a dizzying make-out scene between Sorel, hanging upside down from a tree branch, and a topless Gadé standing on the ground below (too bad about the shitty day-for-night scenes). The version of Hurricane streaming on Tubi is English dubbed, which makes it difficult to accurately judge the acting, though fortunately none of the actors on screen have their performances sabotaged by awful voice actors. Forqué’s script, co-written with Rafael Azcona and Mario di Nardo, is deceptively simple—too simple, I initially thought, until the final denouement that surprised me with its cleverness. The point of Roland’s presence is never really explained, though the final seconds before the end credits spark plenty of speculation. At the risk of a minor spoiler, I’ll just say Ruth should have fun with him (Roland is cute, in a smarmy sort of way) but maybe keep a gun handy. Roland’s up to something.

Michel’s (Tony Kendall) inability to properly tie a tie may not be what
drove Ruth (Analia Gadé) to leave him, but I’m sure it was a factor.

Short Takes: ‘The Love Machine’ (1971) ★★

There’s a reason The Love Machine
doesn’t share the same cult status as
Valley of the Dolls.

Twentieth Century Fox’s adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls was lambasted by critics upon its 1967 release, but that didn’t stop audiences from recognizing its awesomeness and turning it into a huge hit. So, it was inevitable Susann’s follow-up bestselling novel, The Love Machine, would also be adapted for the big screen, by Columbia Pictures this time out.

This time, instead of dolls it’s dick that drives characters to ruin, specifically the one attached to its main character Robin Stone (John Phillip Law). Stone is a New York City newscaster/manwhore who moistens the panties of Judith Austin (Dyan Cannon), the much younger wife of IBC network head Gregory Austin (Robert Ryan). Judith, pussy aquiver, urges her oblivious hubby to make Robin IBC’s new anchorman. It’s not long before Robin is named head of the network’s news division, and Judith shows up expecting to be thanked hard and often. Robin is happy to oblige, especially now that his model girlfriend/doormat Amanda (Jodi Wexler) is out of the way, having killed herself after Robin dumped her. Judith, however, won’t disappear so easily.

The Judith and Robin business is mostly confined to the movie’s second half. The first half focuses more on Robin treating Amanda like shit, even hitting her when she tries to leave his apartment early in the morning because she must get ready for a photo shoot, and butting heads with IBC’s programming head, Danton Miller (Jackie Cooper). There’s also an underdeveloped subplot about a hack comic, Christie Lane (Shecky Greene), who hosts a schlocky-but-successful variety show on IBC, getting involved with Amanda briefly before entering a transactional relationship with IBC’s publicist/“celebrity fucker” Ethel Evans (Maureen Arthur). Flitting about the movie’s periphery is openly gay fashion photographer and Robin’s best friend Jerry Nelson (David Hemmings), who holds out hope he can get his hands on the love machine one day.

The Love Machine is no Valley of the Dolls, though it offers some campy fun here and there. Dyan Cannon is miscast (an older actress like Lola Albright or Eleanor Parker would’ve been a better fit even if they had less marquee value), her portrayal of Judith rendering her less a calculating ballbreaker than a bratty high schooler, but at least Cannon understood the assignment. Same goes for Hemmings, whose performance is one of the more entertaining ones in the movie, stereotypical though it may be. Unfortunately, John Phillip Law mistook his character’s name as a character trait, acting like a stone and robbing the movie of much of its entertainment value. He’s attractive, yes, but totally unbelievable as a “love machine.” (BTW, “the love machine” of the title is primarily referring to television itself, though that point gets lost when the movie focuses more on Robin’s compulsive need to fuck as many women as possible.)

Director Jack Haley, Jr., does the movie no favors by simultaneously mimicking Valley (cheesy fashion advertisements, an author cameo, plus two Dionne Warwick songs) while also including some self-aware camp, such as having the Hallelujah Chorus play as Danton Miller exits Gregory Austin’s office, relieved he was not summoned there to be fired. And don’t expect its R-rating to up the ante. Though you get some fleeting glimpses of bare tits and ass (including Law’s) and a couple of F-bombs (but way more F-slurs, especially in the movie’s homophobic last act), they do little to ramp up the sleaze. In the end, the movie adaptation of The Love Machine never establishes itself as anything more than a cheap imitation. All that said, it’s still more enjoyable than the turgid 1975 adaptation of Susann’s third bestseller, Once is Not Enough.

Short Takes: ‘Swallowed’ (2022) ★★★

Not to be confused with Swallow [NSFW].

A body horror movie written and directed by the same man who gave us Jamie Marks is Dead and The Passenger, with full frontal male nudity and featuring the star of Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge as a vicious queen? You don’t have to ask me twice.

Making Carter Smith’s Swallowed even more intriguing—for me, at least—is Smith makes his story decidedly queer. When we first meet one of its protagonists, Benjamin (Cooper Koch, recently in Netflix’s Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story), he’s celebrating his impending escape from his dead-end hometown in rural Canada, his joining an L.A. gay porn studio’s stable being his all-expense-paid ticket to a more exciting life. His best friend Dom (Jose Colon) thinks Ben is naïve (“Those guys are going to want all that money back, man”), but celebrates with him, nevertheless. Dom is supposedly straight, yet it’s obvious he’s not that straight. Just as obvious is Ben very much hoping tonight’s the night they take their friendship up a notch, or at the very least, Dom consents to a farewell BJ. Alas, despite pointing our minds in that direction, the movie’s title is not an oral sex reference.

On the drive home Dom takes a detour to check on his cousin, DiDi. He and Didi had worked out a deal to smuggle some drugs into the U.S, the money from which Dom was going to give to Ben as a going away present (dude, you could’ve just agreed to let Ben blow you). Except, Didi is now too stoned to act as the go-between, so Dom now must deal with her girlfriend Alice (Jena Malone), who is neither congenial nor compromising, pulling a gun when Dom balks at having to swallow condoms stuffed with product. That gun also comes in handy when Ben needs to be convinced to swallow some condoms as well.

Crossing the border into Maine is the easy part, it turns out. Complications arise when Dom attempts shitting out the contraband and discovers it’s not a drug—but its bite can induce a high. By the time Alice arrives to retrieve the product, she finds Dom catatonic and pants-less and Ben freaking the fuck out. Her boss Rich (Mark Patton) isn’t going to like this.

Though Swallowed is labeled a body horror, don’t go in expecting Cronenberg (David or Brandon) wrapped in a rainbow flag. It feels more like a homoerotic crime thriller, with the tension derived from the unpredictable situation Ben and Dom find themselves in, without any grotesque physical transformations (you can expect some blood and shit, however, as well as one prosthetic dick* that’s almost convincing). Smith has shown in his other films that he can get a lot from a limited budget, and he gets more than his money’s worth with Koch, Colon, Malone and Patton, all great in their roles. Unfortunately, Smith tacked on a silly epilogue that’s tonally at odds with everything that came before it and dismisses all Ben has gone through. It doesn’t ruin the movie, but it did leave a sour taste in my mouth.

*Not counted as the movie’s full-frontal male nudity.

Short Takes: ‘A Fever in the Blood’ (1961) ★★½

What’s the Fever in the Blood? Not
what this poster is selling.

Though the title and poster for A Fever in the Blood suggests a lurid melodrama about philandering husbands and horny housewives, it is actually a discount All the King’s Men, about three men—Judge Hoffman (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.), District Attorney Dan Callahan (Jack Kelly, quickly taking it up to 11), and Sen. Alex Simon (a smarmy Don Ameche)—vying for the governor’s seat of an unnamed state (but probably California). Also, Angie Dickinson is in this movie.

Hoffman and Callahan are friends at the beginning of the movie, with Hoffman asking the D.A. to join him on campaign trail as the lieutenant governor candidate. Callahan is flattered, saying he’d never really considered the office. That is, until Walter Thornwall (Rhodes Reason), the nephew of the former governor, is charged—wrongly—with murdering his adulterous wife. Prosecuting the high-profile case ignites Callahan’s political ambitions, only he is not content to be Hoffman’s running mate, he wants the governor’s office for himself. When Sen. Simon approaches him about supporting his campaign for governor—Simon wanting the seat so he can have more control over state delegates for a planned run for President—Callahan’s confidence in his electability is further bolstered and just like that he’s an asshole.

Thornwall’s trial ends up in Hoffman’s court (awk-ward). The avuncular judge does his best to keep politics out of the trial but it’s clear no one else got the memo. Callahan grandstands for the jury (and press), and Sen. Simon attempts to sway Hoffman with a quid pro quo offer if he declares a mistrial. Hoffman refuses the senator’s bribe but agrees to remain silent on the incident at the request of Simon’s trophy wife Cathy (Dickinson), who not-so-secretly loves the judge. Hoffman’s moral backbone develops scoliosis, however, and he decides to fight as dirty as his opponents.

A Fever in the Blood, based on William Pearson’s 1959 novel, has the makings of A Serious Movie with Important Themes—like The Young Philadelphians, helmed by the same director, Vincent Sherman. But Fever has more in common with the TV movies Sherman would direct later in his career, playing more like a two-hour pilot for a TV series than a big screen drama. The TV comparison is further exacerbated by the cast of TV regulars: Zimbalist (77 Sunset Strip), Kelly (Maverick), Dickinson (a movie star, but also future star of TV’s Police Woman), Robert Colbert (The Time Tunnel) and Carroll O’Connor (All in the Family).

Though it’s not as grand—or as sexy—as Warner Bros. wanted audiences to believe, A Fever in the Blood is still pretty damn entertaining (it’s not like a bad TV movie). The story about politics corrupting even the best of men is evergreen (no one will buy the ending though, especially today), and the script by Roy Huggins (also a TV veteran) and Harry Kleiner provides plenty of twists and turns, with a healthy amount of camp. Only Dickinson disappoints, cast as little more than set decoration, in one scene literally reduced to just sitting there and looking pretty while the men talk.

Short Takes: ‘The Holiday Exchange’ (2024) ★ ½

Does anyone really care if rich people find love? Like, has anyone kept up at night worrying—about bills, about work, about the next four years—ever spared a thought about Peter Thiel’s love life? I know I haven’t. Though, now that I’m thinking about it, is Peter Thiel even capable of love?* 

Anyway, because Christmas—or rather, because there is a dearth of LGBTQ+ holiday TV movies this year—I decided to check out The Holiday Exchange, which re-teams two of the stars of Shoulder Dance as two rich, attractive gay men who exchange houses when faced with the prospect of spending the holidays single, which, in the world of TV Christmas movies, is tantamount to a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

In Los Angeles, we have Wilde, played by Taylor Frey, who has recently broken up with his actor/screenwriter boyfriend Sean. Across the pond, Oliver, played by Rick Cosnett, a well-mannered and well-off divorce attorney, has just found out that the man he hoped to spend the holidays with has other plans that pointedly don’t include him. Fortunately, there’s an app to the rescue: Grindr mister B&B. Wilde treats himself to a holiday vacation, and rents Oliver’s cozy manor house in the fictional Brilfax. After a quick FaceTime call, Oliver decides to rent Wilde’s garish Los Angeles mansion. Wilde’s U.K. vacation is interrupted by Oliver’s movie actor cousin Henry (Daniel Garcia), who shows up needing a place to stay after the pipes at his house freeze. Oliver, on the other hand, ingratiates himself with self-help author Julius (Samer Salem) at a book signing. Low-key conflicts arise (Julius is butt-hurt when he learns Oliver is a divorce attorney; Wilde jumps to conclusions when he sees Henry at a pub with another man), but love, Christmas, etcetera.

I promised myself going in that I would give The Holiday Exchange a chance, even though it is directed by Jake Helgren. There’s a scene early on, when Wilde’s ex Sean (Kyle Dean Massey) shows up to discuss their breakup, that has the expected energy of holiday rom-com, as does a later scene featuring Ashley Fink as a spunky bookstore manager. But these moments are mere teaspoons of rum in a what is otherwise a full glass of egg slog. Most attempts at humor fall flat, such as Wilde being locked out of Oliver’s house after a snowstorm, wearing just a scarf and plaid boxer shorts, his motivation for going outside in the first place not readily apparent. Some actors, such as Kyle Richards, as Wilde’s overly supportive mom Lola, and Camila Banus, as Julius’s publicist/friend Naomi, deliver sit-com style performances, talking really fast and loudly, with nothing funny to say. Richards’ performance in particular leaves the impression that Lola is the type of mom who tried to bond with her son by sharing her cocaine.

The Holiday Exchange is more concerned with the rom than the com, anyway, but even there it falters. Cosnett’s Oliver is blandly charming and there is some chemistry between him and Salem, but Frey’s Wilde is spoiled and smug to the point that I was more invested in him getting punched in the face than kissed. However, this holiday lump of coal isn’t entirely Helgren’s fault. He didn’t write this fucker, his leading man Frey did. However, characters doing an ad read for mister B&B? That has Jake Helgren all over it.

*Thiel has a husband, BTW, though being married isn’t the same as being capable of love, so that question remains unanswered.

Off-the-Rails Takes: ‘The Merry Gentlemen’ (2024)

Netflix decided to spice things up for Christmas 2024 and drop a couple “sexy” holiday movies on its platform. One of them is The Merry Gentleman, in which Ashley (Britt Robertson), after being fired from her gig as a lead dancer in a Rockettes-at-half-price revue, the Jingle Belles, returns to the small town of Sycamore Creek where she grew up, discovering that the bar owned by her parents Lily and Stan (Beth Broderick and Michael fuckin’ Gross of Family Ties and Tremors fame) is in serious trouble, like $30,000-in-debt kind of trouble. Were it not for Luke (Chad Michael Murray, his hair almost as hard as his abs), the hot contractor making repairs at the bar out of the kindness of his heart, and Danny (Maxwell Caulfield, having a very different career than his Grease 2 co-star), a retiree spending all his money and free time at the bar, the business would’ve closed its doors months ago. But they can’t hold off property manager/landlord Denise (Maria Canals-Barrera) forever. When she tells Ashley that she’s got a juice bar lined up to move into the space Jan. 1, Ashley says not so fast, her parents will cover the debt with all the money raised from the all-male revue she’s producing, the Merry Gentlemen!

Denise wishes Ashley good luck with that and is off to wait for Ashley’s scheme to fail. “I’ll show that bitch,” Ashley snarls through clenched teeth. “I’ve faced off against tougher rats than her in my Hell’s Kitchen apartment.” She quickly enlists Luke, her brother-in-law Rodger (Marc Anthony Samuel), the bartender Troy (Colt Prattes), and cab driver Ricky (Hector David, Jr.) to help her with her scheme.

“But I can’t dance,” Luke protests.

Ashley laughs derisively. “You think people will want to see you dance? Silly bunny, you won’t be up on that stage to show off your footwork.” Her eyes travel down the length of his body.

Troy pipes up. “Actually, I can dance.”

“Me too,” adds Ricky.

“I’m sure you boys can,” Ashley says with just a trace of condescension. She takes a seat in front of the stage and lights a cigarette. “But”—she raises her voice in a line delivery almost worthy of Christopher Walken—“this is not DANCING WITH THE FUCKING STARS! Now I want you boys up on that stage, mouths shut and cocks out! I need to see what I’m working with.”

Rodger protests, reminding Ashley that he is her brother-in-law, but Ashley is unmoved. So, Rodger heads for the door. “You leave, and I’ll tell Marie (Marla Sokoloff) that you fingered me in the bathroom during your wedding reception,” Ashley says, coldly and calmly. Her words stop Rodger in his tracks. “You know that’s not true!” he gasps.

“Marie doesn’t. And who knows, play your cards right and we might make it true,” Ashley teases. It’s at this moment that Rodger realizes he never really knew his sister-in-law and it’s that not knowing that makes him fearful. He acquiesces to her demands.

The men disrobe and Ashley walks around each one, giving her assessment (“Got a bit a dad bod there, Rog, but some people like that, and the booty is still lookin’ good. Ricky and Troy, no notes. And Luke, talk about poles. Looks like it’s already starting to point north.”)

The rehearsals and scheming then begin. Luke may have two left feet, but he proves to be a useful co-conspirator, telling Ashley that before he moved to the sedate town of Sycamore Creek he lived in Chicago. Or, more specifically. MCC Chicago. “I did five years for drug trafficking. I learned a lot during that time. I learned how not to get caught.”

“And now you’ve caught me,” Ashley swoons, and the two kiss, then make sweet, sweet love atop the bar’s faulty freezer that Luke hasn’t gotten around to fixing.

The opening night arrives. Ashley had encountered some resistance when promoting the show as an all-male revue, but the moment she tells customers the Merry Gentlemen are a troupe of male strippers, everyone’s lining up—some townspeople getting outed in the process. (“Danny, I never knew!” exclaims Marie when she sees the DILF in line at the bar’s front door. “Honey, you think I was coming here for that piss your parents call beer?” Danny scoffs. “I was hoping Troy might find his inner bisexual. I think tonight’s the night!”)

The lights go down and a remix of Cher’s “DJ Play a Christmas Song” begins to play. The men appear on stage, dressed in Santa costumes. At the song’s chorus, the men strip off their red coats. The ladies (and Danny) go wild. A few dollars are thrown onto the stage, but it isn’t until the DJ—Ashley’s dad Stan—tells the crowd that “the more you throw, the more the guys show,” does the audience truly make it rain.

During the performance, Ashley circulates around the bar, offering interested audience members a little snow to go with the poles, a side-hustle proposed by Luke (he’s a keeper!). It’s while she’s selling blow to giddy housewives that Ashley realizes the most enthusiastic member of the audience—more so than Danny, even—is Denise, who frequently rushes the stage to stuff Luke’s shiny red thong with ones and fives, copping feels in the process.

Denise’s fervor gives Ashley an idea, and at intermission she confers with the Merry Gentlemen to solidify her plan. Her plan in place, she finds Denise, a little tipsy from her third mojito, and asks if she’d be interested in meeting the guys backstage. “You can get to know them in a more…intimate setting,” Ashley says, her voice brimming with innuendo. “Will I be alone with them?” Denise asks. “Of course,” Ashley says, fighting back maniacal laughter. This is just too easy!

After the final act, a disco-fied Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer number that concludes with the men stripping down to light-up jockstraps, it’s time for Denise’s private meat n’ greet with the Merry Gentlemen. There’s a brief kerfuffle when Danny tries to crash, but Ashley quickly averts that by offering up Troy. “But I’m not gay!” Troy whines when she pushes him into Danny’s waiting arms. “But you like getting your dick sucked, don’t you?” Ashley snaps. “Just close your eyes and enjoy it.” With Danny appeased, Denise can enjoy her private time with the three remaining Merry Gentlemen.

Sadly, most of the action happens behind a closed door, with only the occasional filthy whisper or loud moan indicating the action on the other side. The audience isn’t kept outside for long, however, and neither are Ashley and her family, who throw open the door to catch Denise in a very compromising position. Most of the action is out of frame for the sake of the children, but we see enough to figure out who’s sticking what where. (Spit roasted and DP’d. Impressive!). “We have our Christmas card photo!”  Lily singsongs as she walks in recording the action on her smart phone. Denise screams, disentangling herself from the remaining Merry (and Horny) Gentlemen. Marie rushes to her husband Rodger, who’s immediately defensive (“I only let her blow me!”), but Marie puts his fears to rest. “You did it to save my parents’ business, and that’s the best Christmas gift of all.” Meanwhile, Denise, rushing to get dressed, is alternately cursing Ashley and her family and begging for them to destroy the photos. Stan considers Denise’s pleas. “We could do that, for a price. Say, $30,000, with the next six months free?” Denise tearfully agrees.

After Denise leaves weeping into the night, Stan and Lily each put an arm around Ashley. “This is what Christmas is all about: family,” Lily says wistfully. “Now, is there any of that ‘snow’ left?”

OK, I made up most of that shit, but you knew that already. (As if Netflix would spring for the rights to a Cher recording for this thing.) When so little imagination went into The Merry Gentlemen, I just felt compelled to imagine my own movie. Robertson, Samuel, Sokoloff and Caulfield (not playing gay, BTW, because this movie would never dare be that interesting) project the right spirit, but it’s Murray, with his resting my-career-has-come-to-this face, who better embodies the experience of watching The Merry Gentlemen. Despite its “sexy” theme, it’s a by-the-numbers TV holiday movie that’s just going through the motions. ★½

The Merry Gentlemen is strictly TV-14, but Chad Michael
Murray teases us with some NC-17 bulge.

Short Takes: ‘Arabella: Black Angel’ (1989) ★★

One thing that can be said for the late entry giallo Arabella: Black Angel is that it doesn’t waste time. In the movie’s opening scenes, a sexy redhead with silly gold glitter streaks bracketing her eyes, goes to a sex club, The Infernal Regions (also simply called Hell), slinking past various sexy tableaux, including two women, tits out, lighting their cigarettes from another woman’s candle strap-on and two men in black banana hammocks wrestling, before ultimately submitting to two hunks wearing high-waisted black vinyl pants. This encounter is promptly interrupted by a police raid and the red-headed woman is apprehended by gruff vice Det. Alfonse de Rosa (Carlo Mucari). “I’m not a whore,” she cries. The detective decides to let her go free—after he rapes her. This all happens within the movie’s first 12 minutes.

The main character is Deborah (a striking, and frequently naked, Tiní Cansino). She is not a whore, or a redhead, but the raven-haired wife of Frank (Francesco Casale), a best-selling author who’s been confined to a wheelchair after a wedding day car accident (Deborah really should’ve waited until they got to their hotel to blow him). Frank is also kind of an asshole, prone to throwing tantrums whenever Deborah or his mother Marta (Evelyn Stewart, a.k.a. Ida Galli) ask how the new book is coming along.

Deborah, however, has bigger problems than being married to a temperamental paraplegic, like the fact that she has not one but two guys trying to blackmail her, one for sex, the other for money. If only they knew that Deborah and Frank have an understanding: at night she dons her red wig and goes looking for some strange as Arabella, then tells Frank about her extramarital adventures the next morning, which he then incorporates into his novel. Had the blackmailers known this, they might still be alive, because another one of Deborah’s problems is people who fuck/fuck with her tend to get their genitals mutilated by a scissors-wielding maniac. Can Inspector Gina (Valentina Visconti), a straight man’s lesbian fantasy, find the scissor killer before Deborah mounts her next cock? More importantly, will Gina, who wears the same black plaid blazer for most of the movie, ever find her way to a TJ Maxx? (Or a Castel Romano Outlet, as she’s in Italy. The point is, bitch needs to add to her wardrobe.)

Arabella: Black Angel isn’t much of a giallo. It’s certainly one of director Stelvio (Emergency Squad, Convoy Busters) Massi’s lesser films, something he was obviously aware of given he’s hiding behind the generic—but appropriately porny—pseudonym Max Steel. However, if you’re looking for sleaze, Arabella’s got plenty, with copious nudity (mostly of the female variety), simulated humping and gruesome murders, including the graphic emasculation of one of Arabella’s hookups and two scenes where a killer uses scissors like a vaginal speculum. It’s no New York Ripper, but it’s far superior to Delitto carnale. At least Arabella doesn’t forget it’s a giallo, though you’ll likely spend more time puzzling over the movie’s lost-in-translation dialog (“This evening I’m going to nab you with your hands in the chili, young lady”) than you will its central mystery.