"Deadlier
Than The Male"
Written Harold Bonnett (story) and John T. Chapman (story and screenplay). Cinematography by Bernard Hirschenson, Music by Mundell Lowe.
The film stars Meg Myles (The Phenix City Story (1955)), Grayson Hall (Night of The Iguana (1964), (Dark Shadows TV), Del Tenney, Mike Keene, Robert Yuro, Sabrina.
Called a 1962 American "sexploitation film" it's actually curiously well enough done and very film noir-ish in spots especially the opening intro carnival sequence which will remind you of Nightmare Alley. You wish it would have stayed at the carnival.
The story starts off at a sleazy carnival burlesque show where carnival stripper, Stacey (Meg Myles), has a confrontation with her junkie ex-husband in a dressing room strung with lingerie.
The story starts off at a sleazy carnival burlesque show where carnival stripper, Stacey (Meg Myles), has a confrontation with her junkie ex-husband in a dressing room strung with lingerie.
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| Meg Myles as Stacey Kane |
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| hubby |
He says he's off the horse and has a wad to prove it. he tells her hes got a ab waiting for them out back. He gives her the wad of ash to hold to prove he's on the level.
Stacey gives him a song and dance story about having to go meet an admirer out at the entrance to the show for a few minutes. She throws on a trench coat over her corset and runs out. So long sucker!
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| So long sucker! |
 |
| Take me to the Municipal Airport |
She hops in the waiting cab with the $900 and tells the cabbie to take her to the nearest airport. She flies off to New York City.
On the plane she picks up a mark and bounces him for the connections he has to New York night life, which she parlays into a shot at a cabaret act.
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| Grayson Hall as Pepe |
She plays footsie with the lesbian club manager Pepe (Hall) and gets the spot, but she wants more. She strings along the club owner Arnie who sets her up in a fancy apartment, but she falls for the owner's son Larry. No problem, she balls both of them.
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| Mike Keene as Arnold Kenyon |
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| Robert Yuro as Larry Kenyon |
When her desperate husband finally tracks her down, she manipulates him, plotting a way to get to kill two birds with one stone to get what she wants.
Noirsville
Noirsville
For reference on carney strip shows check out the noir-ly photographed Carnival Strippers by Susan Mieselas:
Myles has a great singing voice and she really impresses in her audition number. The club sequence was filmed at New York's old La Martinique cabaret which from the bearings I get (from some of the outside the entrance location shots) seems to be someplace on the Upper East Side, I think I see Central Park in the bg. but it could be Washington Square and The Village. It's not one of the famous jazz clubs of "The Street", 52d Street between 5th & 6th Ave., but more upscale, if as some reviews suggest these type of places really existed NYC of the early 60's was pretty bizarre.
This film captures a strange period in the US where sex was nuking the restraints it was placed under thirty years before by the Legion of Decency, Breen and the Hays Code, it worships at a breast, ass and leather fetish altar, hell, even the late 50s early 60s cars look like sex objects. It taps in this weird sexual Zietgiest that prevailed in an atmosphere of impending nuclear annihilation. This film plays like a John Waters/Devine wet dream its entertaining enough, the DVD is excellent better than some of the screen caps found on the web, available from Something Wild, 6.5/10
From IMDb:
A rollercoaster ride along early 60s coffeehouse noir
Author: anonymous from Boston, Mass.
9 April 1999
Too bad this movie is so hard to find in rental stores. It's got underground cult classic all over it, and deserves an annual revival at the Film Forum with audiences dividing up between those who do Meg Myles' lines and those who chant along with Grayson Hall: "You'll EAT and DRINK what I SAY until you lose five pounds IN THE PLACES WHERE!"
Designed as an homage to the noir sensibilities of the late Forties (think Blue Dahlia), this movie was filmed at a bargain basement budget in New York's old La Martinique cabaret. The hachi-machi dialogue and ratty looking clothes seem like a prophetic foreshadowing of Valley of the Dolls; the sleazy atmosphere of coffeehouse decadence make this a much slicker variant on some of the themes canvassed by the better known British noirette Beat Girl (featuring Christopher Lee and Oliver Reed). Satan in High Heels is essentially a showcase for the talents of three women: Meg Myles, Grayson Hall and Sabrina. Suave Z-movie director Del Tenney ("Horror of Party Beach") contributes a deft turn as gay piano player Paul. Of the three female principals, Miss Myles distinguishes herself for her ability to wear some pretty sharp avant-garde leather ensembles and deliver some punchy salvos. Grayson Hall rules the roost as Pepe, cocking a jaundiced eye at every sad sack who wanders into her orbit with a l-o-o-o-n-g draw on that impossibly baroque cigarette holder, and the mordant comment, "Bear up, darling, I love your eyelashes." As Herself, Sabrina is some force of Anti-Nature. Don't miss her big production number which finds her pneumatically shoe-horned into Charlie the Tuna regalia pouting, "I CAHN'T be good!" The big Meg Myles number, "The Female of the Species (is more deadly than the male)" had its title riff quarried for the soundtrack of some pitiful Sixties retread last year.
This is the movie that proves the truth in the maxim that if the good die young, the bad are ALWAYS much more entertaining in their indecent old age.
"High Heels" treads familiar "noir" territory
Author: melvelvit-1 from NYC suburbs
22 December 2008
Satan IN HIGH HEELS treads the same "noirish" territory as Beverly Michaels' 1953 WICKED WOMAN -so much so it could be considered an unintended upscale remake. Stacey Kane ruthlessly uses men and women alike to rise from Midwest carnival burlesque queen to Manhattan jazz club diva but, like BLAST OF SILENCE's Frankie Bono (made the same year on location in NYC), a semblance of tender feelings can prove disastrous. Tired of bumping and grinding on the midway, Stacey steals her junkie ex-husband's bankroll and heads for New York and a new lease on life. On the plane she seduces a man who introduces her to the lesbian manager of a Greenwich Village jazz club where she's hired on the spot after a smoky audition and the voluptuous vixen wastes no time ensnaring the club's wealthy owner in her sexual web as well. Things get complicated when his teenage son also falls for her but Stacey, forced to choose between love and money, sees a way to have it all when her hell-bent for revenge ex-husband reappears brandishing a knife...
The early 60s NYC jazz club scene provides an atmospheric background for the rise and fall of a wicked woman with the lesbian club manager (Grayson Hall from DARK SHADOWS fame) and gay pianist lending an air of "adult" authenticity. Pneumatic pin-up queen Meg Myles as the predatory Stacey makes a memorable sociopath and gets to growl "Deadlier Than The Male" decked out in leather breeches and riding crop. As a compliment to the breast and leather fetishes, British sexbomb Sabrina is also on hand as the club's star attraction and she warbles as well. What's not to like?
Some unusual aspects...
Author: kmorse8 from United States
4 June 2006
The movie is well enough done, and for what it was, a kind of cinema noire sexploitation, one of the better ones, even though it is now distributed by odd-ball outlets . Myles is a very competent actress,but her generous figure has been her worst enemy , as far as being taken seriously. She got a similar rap in 'The Phoenix City Story". But Myes forte is as a sensuous singer and she can hold her own with O'Day and the rest. The most interesting thing about this movie is the liberal use fetishism. An alternate title was straight out of Sacher-Masoch, " Venus in Furs" Meg Myles has a shapely foot and the director and the cameraman know it and pander to the fetish in several scenes. and the skillful Sado Masochistic leather slant is handled nicely, as well.; I've seen it bungled badly in some recent high budget stuff of recent years. I think the supporting cast was good, and credible with special kudos for Grayson Hall. I knew the club scene in Baltimore and NY in the 50 's and this flick captures it better than most.
Myles has a great singing voice and she really impresses in her audition number. The club sequence was filmed at New York's old La Martinique cabaret which from the bearings I get (from some of the outside the entrance location shots) seems to be someplace on the Upper East Side, I think I see Central Park in the bg. but it could be Washington Square and The Village. It's not one of the famous jazz clubs of "The Street", 52d Street between 5th & 6th Ave., but more upscale, if as some reviews suggest these type of places really existed NYC of the early 60's was pretty bizarre.
 |
| British export sex bomb Sabrina - In 1957, her 41-inch breasts were insured for £125,000. |
From IMDb:
A rollercoaster ride along early 60s coffeehouse noir
Author: anonymous from Boston, Mass.
9 April 1999
Too bad this movie is so hard to find in rental stores. It's got underground cult classic all over it, and deserves an annual revival at the Film Forum with audiences dividing up between those who do Meg Myles' lines and those who chant along with Grayson Hall: "You'll EAT and DRINK what I SAY until you lose five pounds IN THE PLACES WHERE!"
Designed as an homage to the noir sensibilities of the late Forties (think Blue Dahlia), this movie was filmed at a bargain basement budget in New York's old La Martinique cabaret. The hachi-machi dialogue and ratty looking clothes seem like a prophetic foreshadowing of Valley of the Dolls; the sleazy atmosphere of coffeehouse decadence make this a much slicker variant on some of the themes canvassed by the better known British noirette Beat Girl (featuring Christopher Lee and Oliver Reed). Satan in High Heels is essentially a showcase for the talents of three women: Meg Myles, Grayson Hall and Sabrina. Suave Z-movie director Del Tenney ("Horror of Party Beach") contributes a deft turn as gay piano player Paul. Of the three female principals, Miss Myles distinguishes herself for her ability to wear some pretty sharp avant-garde leather ensembles and deliver some punchy salvos. Grayson Hall rules the roost as Pepe, cocking a jaundiced eye at every sad sack who wanders into her orbit with a l-o-o-o-n-g draw on that impossibly baroque cigarette holder, and the mordant comment, "Bear up, darling, I love your eyelashes." As Herself, Sabrina is some force of Anti-Nature. Don't miss her big production number which finds her pneumatically shoe-horned into Charlie the Tuna regalia pouting, "I CAHN'T be good!" The big Meg Myles number, "The Female of the Species (is more deadly than the male)" had its title riff quarried for the soundtrack of some pitiful Sixties retread last year.
This is the movie that proves the truth in the maxim that if the good die young, the bad are ALWAYS much more entertaining in their indecent old age.
"High Heels" treads familiar "noir" territory
Author: melvelvit-1 from NYC suburbs
22 December 2008
Satan IN HIGH HEELS treads the same "noirish" territory as Beverly Michaels' 1953 WICKED WOMAN -so much so it could be considered an unintended upscale remake. Stacey Kane ruthlessly uses men and women alike to rise from Midwest carnival burlesque queen to Manhattan jazz club diva but, like BLAST OF SILENCE's Frankie Bono (made the same year on location in NYC), a semblance of tender feelings can prove disastrous. Tired of bumping and grinding on the midway, Stacey steals her junkie ex-husband's bankroll and heads for New York and a new lease on life. On the plane she seduces a man who introduces her to the lesbian manager of a Greenwich Village jazz club where she's hired on the spot after a smoky audition and the voluptuous vixen wastes no time ensnaring the club's wealthy owner in her sexual web as well. Things get complicated when his teenage son also falls for her but Stacey, forced to choose between love and money, sees a way to have it all when her hell-bent for revenge ex-husband reappears brandishing a knife...
The early 60s NYC jazz club scene provides an atmospheric background for the rise and fall of a wicked woman with the lesbian club manager (Grayson Hall from DARK SHADOWS fame) and gay pianist lending an air of "adult" authenticity. Pneumatic pin-up queen Meg Myles as the predatory Stacey makes a memorable sociopath and gets to growl "Deadlier Than The Male" decked out in leather breeches and riding crop. As a compliment to the breast and leather fetishes, British sexbomb Sabrina is also on hand as the club's star attraction and she warbles as well. What's not to like?
Some unusual aspects...
Author: kmorse8 from United States
4 June 2006
The movie is well enough done, and for what it was, a kind of cinema noire sexploitation, one of the better ones, even though it is now distributed by odd-ball outlets . Myles is a very competent actress,but her generous figure has been her worst enemy , as far as being taken seriously. She got a similar rap in 'The Phoenix City Story". But Myes forte is as a sensuous singer and she can hold her own with O'Day and the rest. The most interesting thing about this movie is the liberal use fetishism. An alternate title was straight out of Sacher-Masoch, " Venus in Furs" Meg Myles has a shapely foot and the director and the cameraman know it and pander to the fetish in several scenes. and the skillful Sado Masochistic leather slant is handled nicely, as well.; I've seen it bungled badly in some recent high budget stuff of recent years. I think the supporting cast was good, and credible with special kudos for Grayson Hall. I knew the club scene in Baltimore and NY in the 50 's and this flick captures it better than most.
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