Passion in the Sun (1964) Sexploitation Film Soleil

Directed by Dale Berry. Written by Dale Berry from a story by Enique Madariaga.

"FILM NOIR HAD AN INEVITABLE TRAJECTORY…
THE ECCENTRIC & OFTEN GUTSY STYLE OF FILM NOIR HAD NO WHERE ELSE TO GO… BUT TO REACH FOR EVEN MORE OFF-BEAT, DEVIANT– ENDLESSLY RISKY & TABOO ORIENTED SET OF NARRATIVES FOUND IN THE SUBVERSIVE AND EXPLOITATIVE CULT FILMS OF THE MID TO LATE 50s through the 60s and into the early 70s!" The Last Drive In (thelastdrivein.com)

Another example albeit a very weak one for the above quote. Passion in the Sun is also known as The Girl and the Geek. It's got two superficial storylines basically the escape of a geek from a freak show at an amusement park, and the kidnapping of a stripper at an airport.

These plot points are the premise for depicting what can only be described as a lot of Tits & Ass for  Grindhouse movie theaters. Quite a few Hollywood Classic Noir films allude to all the seedy goings on or hint at it in subtext. The gangsters are usually depicted as counterfeiters, safe crackers, robbers, or illegal gamblers, you know  "morally safe" crooks.  But they hardly ever showed the other vice rackets, the drug pushers, the pornographers, the strippers, the prostitutes, the whores.  By the Transitional Noir Era the sleazy "perps" were making their own films, what could be Noir-er than that?

The value with a lot of these Exploitation flicks is three fold. The first and foremost is their archival value, they are basically a good and candid record, in this case of circa 1963-4  coastal Texas. The second is that they occasionally contain some quite beautiful crisp Black and White cinematography. The third is that they helped to spearhead the sexual revolution and also the bounds of what was acceptable at that particular moment in time, their cheapness requiring a good amount of creativity.

the geek

The geek has escaped

The story starts with at a amusement park. It could be the near the old Amusement Pier in Galveston at 23rd & Seawall in Galveston. In the background is "Wild Mouse" roller coaster. A caged geek escapes and runs off. The parks owner, a woman calls the police. Two deputies arrive (one is played by the director Dale Berry) and get the details do a search.

Over the police radio comes a call instructing them to proceed ASAP to the airport to intercept two persons of interest. The two officers hop in their patrol car and take off. Here we get what looks like the patrol car heading through downtown Galveston and then onto the freeway system eventually ending up at the old William P. Hobby International Airport.

Tail Fins

We cut to a Trans Texas Airline plane. A stripper Josette (Josette Valague) is flying back to Houston from a booking in Vegas.

Josette the stripper (Josette Valague)

She gets off her plane and walks down the concourse to the terminal. Meanwhile gangster Ernesto gets off another Trans Texas Airline plane. He calls Raul's motel room from a pay phone. Raul is banging some chick he picked up. Ernesto tells him his plane got in early and to come and pick him up. Raul splits for the airport.

Ernesto (Gregg Pappas)

Raul (Dick Eason)

Raul makes his rendezvous with Ernesto. They head to the parking lot. Meanwhile our "Geek Squad" hunting cops sent to intercept the two "beaners" arrive also at the terminal.

As Ernesto and Raul head for the convertible the cops spot them. They scramble for the car grabbing Josette, who is passing by as a hostage. They throw her in the back seat with Ernesto trying to wrestler her down, while Raul peels out, laying rubber on the pave.

Ernesto and Josette in the back seat

They shoot down the freeway with the cops in hot pursuit. During this whole getaway Josette proves a bit too much woman to handle for the guy in the back seat. She's squirmy. She's kicking. She's biting. Its a fun sequence but it does go on a bit too long.

Tail Fins

It's as if the producers got too thin a story line and must drag things out to make it a feature length film. This provides us time for the backstory of Josette. Apparently she's the headlining stripper for the Sans Souci Strip Club. At various points we cut to the club.

Strippers at the Sans Souci

We see the manager going through histrionics in what looks like the cash register booth. We don't know what he's on about but we can assume it's because Josette his headliner has not shown up. We also get an inside the strippers dressing room where the San Souci Girls are getting ready for their sets. They are quite nude but it's 1964 so it's all basically T&A, with carefully choreographed  movements by the gals, anything more would have got the film an obscenity charge. They either walk backwards or are holding a makeup bag in a strategic spot. The club and its dressing room are equally interesting in an archival manner and the circa '64 stripper dance routines are quite quaint by today's standards.

Back to our plucky heroine Josette. Our crooks temporarily ditch the cops by turning off the highway onto a dirt/oyster shell track. Josette runs from the car. Ernesto wrestles her down.

Raul and Ernesto are able to stuff Josette into the trunk. They start to squabble over the suitcase. Raul cold-cocks Ernesto and opens the trunk. He tells Josette to get in the front seat. Raul however can't get the car started. It's probably flooded. He grabs the suitcase and Josette and they head into the boonies before the cops backtrack and find them.

It's a sand silt and clay river bottom flood plain with lots of rack heaps, logs, snags, root wads, and brush. The two stop for a breather on a log. Josette grabs the briefcase and knocks Raul off his feet. She scrambles up the bank.

Raul lunges at her grabbing her dress. It rips off. Raul's left holding her dress while Josette runs off with the briefcase. 

Back to exploitation!

So now Josette is running around in just her bra and panties. Eventually thinking she's safe, she of course decides to go skinny dipping to wash the grit off (it's probably chafing, lol) and cool off.

Again Josette can hear Raul getting close.



She slips on her undies and runs off along the river bottom. Meanwhile the two sheriffs men have found the ditched car and Ernesto. They begin to track the footprints in the sand.

So here we get more footage of of Raul chasing Josette, Josette jiggling as she runs, and the two sheriffs deputies after the both of them. But again we get two more sequences of Josette stopping to rest , and then later another where again she strips off her bra and panties to rinse the grit and sand out of them in the river.

exhausted Josette stopping to rest ...

This time Raul is closer than expected and with no time to put her things back on Josette grabs the briefcase and runs off.

Jiggling all the way. Here again the shots are choreographed so that the briefcase hides her bush for the censors. lol.

Finally into the scenario comes the geek who escaped from the freak show running about in the same river bottom.

Noirsville

Tail Fins

Gulf Coast from coaster

This is one of those it's so bad it's good Exploitation flicks. It's a mindless entertainment with some cultural archival value. We even get a sequence on a type of, one car at a time, wooden roller-coaster. called a "Wild Mouse." You can see the Gulf Coast in the distance it was probably filmed at Galveston.

The Sans Souci Stripper Routines

The official cast is Josette as stripper Josette Valague, strippers Rain Drop, Mai Kai, and Dee Dent as the San Souci girls, director Dale Berry as Sgt. Mike Green, Bill Rhodes as Officer Claude Hill,
Dick Eason as Raul Ortiz, Gregg Pappas as Earnesto, Mike Butts as The Geek, Molly Goldberg, Liza Marina and and Bill Ratliff as the club manager.

Can be found to download or on DVD from Something Weird Video. 5.5/10