Retro Review: Hollywood Boulevard (1976) Joe Dante/Candice Rialson

Candy Hope (Candice Rialson, of infamous talking vagina film Chatterbox) has come to Hollywood to make it as an actress. She is taken with the town, and hangs about under the famous Hollywood sign pondering her future. She drops in to agent Walter Paisley (the legendary Dick Miller - and if you don't get the reference in his character name you have no right to be reading this blog. Or indeed, anything on the internet. You're dead to me) who instantly advises her to change her name "that's what we do". "But I like my name; it's what people call me" This simple, yet humourous exchange is the kind of quick fire comedy we're going to get, and for the most part it works.

So, with her new moniker, Candy Wednesday is told to walk the streets, get her face out there, and be discovered. Her first job soon comes, unfortunately it's as a getaway driver in a bank heist.

  

Paisley does get her work, though and sends her to Miracle Pictures ("if it's a good picture, it's a Miracle") where she is put to work on the latest action caper from director Erich Von Leppe (the wonderful, much missed cult actor Paul Bartel, Eating Raoul) and she falls for the writer P.G. (Richard Doran). Things are not going well on the shoot though, as various stunt women and actress' fall victim to 'accidents'. Could someone have it in for them?

 

The star of the picture, Mary McQueen (Mary Woronov, who often appeared with Bartel and popped up in Ti West's The House of the Devil) seems to getting more and more worked up at the pretty young starlets getting the limelight. All of which leads up to a climax under the aforementioned Hollywood sign.

Hollywood Boulevard is a heart felt spoof of the industry of low budget film making, itself made up from stock footage and clips from various New World Pictures that the directors Joe Dante and Allan Arkush could get their hands on. If there's any action scene in the film, you can guarantee it's from something like  The Big Doll House, Caged Heat or Death Race 2000 (Frankenstein's car and costume is even used in newly shot footage). All this adds to the charm of what is essentially a look behind the scenes of Roger Corman's empire, and the Hollywood 'dream factory'. While the laughs come thick and fast in the first half of the film, (Miller's character being brilliant and Rialson displaying more than her psychical charms to show she should have been a star) the slap dash of styles (probably not helped by having the two directors off filming separate scenes) doesn't quite gel, and the attempted rape sequences (once while being filmed) are more uncomfortable to watch than the much more graphic one in I Spit On Your Grave. More offensive to some may be the inclusion of a musical interlude in which a no mark hippy band (Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen) play one of their 'ditties'. Fans will rejoice in spotting the many references and nods, to films as diverse as A Hard Days Night, Robot Monster and even the smoke filled atmosphere of Mario Bava flicks. The one eyed, oafish cameraman (whose patch changes from side to side) is amusing too.

We all know what Dante did after this, but Arkush wasn't such a directorial slouch either, going on to direct many TV shows including St Elsewhere and Heroes, but also was behind the often overlooked android romance, Heartbeeps (1981) with Andy Kaufman and The Ramones film, Rock n' Roll High School (1979).

For the most part, it's a fun ride with in jokes a-plenty and and some quite irreverent humour. Keep an eye open for a Godzilla character apparently played by future Oscar winner Jonathan (The Silence of the Lambs) Demme, and a party sequence whose guests include Famous Monster creator Forrest J Ackerman, Lewis (Alligator) Teague, Joe Dante himself and Forbidden Planet's Robby The Robot (OK you're not going to miss him, not least because he has a great scene with Miller who is trying to sign him as an actor - "do you do pictures?"; "not recently, I don't do nudity" ).

The US DVD has a great commentary track in which Dante, Arkush and producer Jon Davison discuss the various footage they plundered from other films, working for Corman in the 70s, and the usual behind the lens gossip (during the shoot, one of the actress' threw their only prop grenade and lost it in some mud, so the grenade thrown onscreen is a rock)

Forrest J. Ackerman and Joe Dante (as the waiter in the background)

7 out of 10.

Retro review: Le sexe qui parle (AKA Pussy Talk, 1975)

Since my review of the 1977 'sex' 'comedy' Chatterbox is currently the most viewed article on my blog, it makes sense (in a page view grabbing way, at least) that I should get round to reviewing the French film which was the films' influence, Le sexe qui parle, better known as in its international title, Pussy Talk, which turns out to be a much more hardcore outing than the rather tame US counterpart.

 

Joëlle (Pénélope Lamour) is the lady who is cursed with a talking doo-dah in this film, but it doesn't make its presence known until she has inexplicably fiddled with a blonde who happens to make a comment to her in the street (who also looks completely disinterested in this - even when Joëlle uses a rolled up banknote to play with her parts), performed fellatio on an unsuspecting office clerk at work, relieved the tedium of a dinner party by having another strum, only in front of all the guests, and been completely let down in bed by her husband, Eric (Jean-Loup Philippe, best known from several Jean Rollin films, the most notable being Lips of Blood - nice link, eh? - billed here as Nils Hortzs, no doubt to keep his film cred).

 

After this disappointing display of horizontal dancing, she heads to the bathroom to flick the bean once more, this time while having a fantasy of a group of men watching her do this while jizzing the most unrealistic spunk on her car windscreen. Her foo foo is just as unimpressed with Eric's prowess too, and it makes it known to him. Eric brings in a psychiatrist (Ellen Earl) who is coerced into getting a seeing to from him by Joëlle's vagina before going public with Joëlle's secret, causing her to go into hiding.

A sleazy reporter, Richard (Vicky Messica) takes it upon himself to get the scoop on the vocal vag, and makes a deal with her Auntie Barbara (Sylvia Bourbon), who is an artist who can't help taking part in a threesome with her models, be they male or female, and makes novel use of her brush and stiletto heel!

 

Pussy Talk is not quite as hardcore as some films of the 70s, but there are still several strong scenes of sex, mostly blow jobs, but some penetration - done via insert (pun intended) shots of body doubles. There is even a couple of pot shots later in the film, which make the aforementioned windscreen splashes seem more ridiculous. Surprisingly the film is fairly well made, with some fun POV angles and the performances, even though dubbed are above your usual XXX fare. I did try to see if they had managed to dub the fanny voice right, and yes, it did seem to go with the lip movements, so no complaint there.

Originally rejected outright by the BBFC in 1976, the film had a UK DVD release under the Erotika banner in 2000, but was cut by 1 minute 37 seconds, I assume to the penetration and ejaculation scenes, but as it was the uncut version I watched, I can't confirm this. There are many close ups of both male and female privates - aroused and diddled, often too - so I imagine even in a cut form this would still be very saucy.
The music was a stand out element, too and at times reminded me of Fulci's The Beyond - although I doubt this was an influence!

It wasn't quite sexy enough, however to cause a dirty rummage of my own, but had some genuine moments of eroticism, and was no where near as boring as what counts as XXX fare nowadays. Give me 70s bush any day.
6 out of 10. 

Retro review: Chatterbox (1977) talking you know what movie!

So, where do you start when you have a film based around a woman who has a talking vagina? Let's try..

Penelope Pittman (Candice Rialson) rushes to a psychiatrist when she finds one night her lady bits have started talking. Not only talking, but criticising her soon to be ex-partner's prowess. Seems he (Perry Bullington) wasn't too happy being mocked by her box. So, off to the doctors she goes, but after finding out the pussy can sing,  rather than prescribe some intense psychotherapy, Dr Pearl (Larry Gelman) decides he will become Virginia's (as she likes to be known) doctor-agent, and gets her out of her hairdressing job and sets her out into the world of showbiz, game shows and bad musical numbers with Penelope begrudgingly along for the ride.

There's not much more to the film really, and even at just over 70mins it does seem to drag, the gags not being funny and the songs being, well just plain awful (although you'll have that "Wang Dang Doodle" song in your head for hours after!). I lost count of the times the sound boom was in shot! The final moments save the film, however.

This is a soft core remake of the infamous French porno La Sexe Qui Parle (Pussy Talk) and as such, there is no shots of Virginia, but plenty of topless action. On the plus side, while not particularly funny, it has moments that entertain, and they somehow managed to get Rip Taylor to appear as the gay hairdresser (stereotyping in the 70s? Never!), but he doesn't really travel well to the UK and  I found he grated rather than was great.

Worth seeking out for fans (or fannies) of 70s kitsch and oddities, but does run out of steam far too quick.
3 out of 10.
UPDATE: Chatterbox has just been re-issued on DVD in the US as part of a 4-film double disc set "Cult Movie Marathon"