"Hot Revenge!"
Directed by Dimis Dadiras.
Written by Giannis Tziotis. Cinematography by Kostas Papagiannakis and Dimitris Papakonstadis, Music by Nikos Ignatiadis
The film stars Kostas Prekas as Vera's boyfriend. He looks remarkably like a young Warren Beatty, Gisela Dali as Maria Foka/ Vera's sister reminds me of Ursula Andres. The rest of the cast is Kaiti Ibrohori as Vera, Dimitris Kleris as Tasos Ramsis, with Marianna Tsiouma, Nikos Dimitratos, Kostas Savaidis, and Thanasis Angelou.
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| Gisela Dali as Maria Foka looking like Ursula Andres |
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| Kostas Prekas as Vera's boyfriend. |
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| Kaiti Ibrohori as Vera |
The Wild Pussycat is about a young woman named Vera who is hopelessly involved with her "boyfriend" who is a pimp. This tale is along the same lines as Director Irvin Berwick's lost Transitional Noir The Street Is My Beat (1966). You can distill The Street Is My Beat down to the story of a young woman who marries her lover and he turns out to be a pimp. Its his M.O. He sets her up as a prostitute in a hotel room turning tricks. Nice Guy.
This film seems right out of the sleazy steamy pulp paperbacks on rotating racks that graced many drugstore, and five and dimes, of my youth.
Our film begins when a now pregnant Vera goes to confront her pimp/lover at his flop and finds him breaking in the newest girl in his stable, Marianna.
This newest revelation causes an already depressed Vera to drop off the deep end. She becomes suicidal. She leaves her pimp's apartment house and walks right out into the on coming traffic. She is hit by a car and killed.
About a week later Maria, Vera's older and wiser and been around the block a few times blonde sister, hits town asking questions.
She goes to Vera's apartment and finds that its already cleaned out. She asks the landlady about Vera's belongings. She tells Maria that she already got rid of everything except her diary. Maria asks for it but the landlady holds out for money, money that Vera owed on back rent. Maria pays her off and begins to read Vera's diary. She finds out about Kostas and the abuse Vera went through.
The rest of the tale consists of flashbacks to Vera's past humiliations as a slave to love, juxtaposed with the live action present as Maria plots her elaborate and unique revenge against the pimp. Both of course offer sexploitation opportunities for everyone, cheesecake for the guys, beefcake for the gals that however is restricted to, being 1969, just T&A.
If this had been an American production filmed in 1968 and released in 1969, the M.O. of producers would have been to film more explicit inserts and added them to the final cut for the U.S. grindhouse circuit.
The Wild Pussycat is a very well made Sexploitation Noir with excellent B&W cinematography.
Definitely worth a watch. 7/10.
Noirsville
IMDb Review by donthitpause ★★★★ 7
Ah Greece, the Cradle of Democracy. Although, after watching Dimis Dadiras' The Wild Pussycat from 1969, I'd probably lean more towards the Cradle of Filth, coz stick me in chains and pour a cheap black & white label bottle of Ouzo over me, this was one very down & derty Greek film for real.
"Nick the Pimp" is one baaaad mo'fo. But being a baaaad mo'fo comes with a price. See, Nick owes. And Nick owes... all over town. To make ends, Nick enlists the "services" of the love of his life, Vera, and serves her out to every slob he owes coin to. With every cinematic trick & trope in the book, director Dimis Dadiras fully establishes that Nick the Pimp is an A-Class asshole and certainly does not deserve the devotion he gets from good girl Vera.
Good girl Vera, who is now preggers, tired of being used, abused, and treated like dirt, has finally reached the bottom of the tzatziki bowl. After being thrown out of her apartment by Nick, Vera succumbs to depression and throws herself headlong in oncoming traffic.
When hot chick Maria arrives on the scene to investigate her sister Vera's death, she works out via Vera's diary that "Nick the Pimp" was behind her death. So Maria seeks revenge. How? By smoking. And taking her clothes off. Constantly! So many cigarettes. So much nudity. So much sweat. The hair. The clothes. The alcohol. The boobs. The music. The toe sucking...
Wait... WHAT?
Now, there is a flick currently playing in cinemas by a director who has inserted foot fetish scenes throughout his films. I'm going to publicly go on record to confirm that after 9 films, this director should probably watch The Wild Pussycat to learn how that shit is really done.
Mondo Macabro have done an ace job in giving this rare masterpiece of Eurosleaze new life. If you're a connoisseur of the cinema of Jess Franco or Jean Rollin, this flick is absolutely for you. Or, if you're simply a lover of films where everyone is naked for 95% of the time, this film is also absolutely for you, creep!
HotRevenge/ 10
"Look in the mirror at what you've become!"
A young woman commits suicide after coming home to find her boyfriend with another woman. Her sister gets a hold of her diary and pieces together the story of the boyfriend's abuse of her sister and decides to get revenge. She entices him up to her home and then drugs him and chains him up in a soundproof room. Then things get weird.
Like The Deserter, which is a bonus feature of the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray release of this film, The Wild Pussycat is shot in high contrast black and white and it's absolutely gorgeous. There are two versions of the film on the disc: the domestic Greek version, which introduces a subplot involving a drug investigation and the more controversial export version. I watched the domestic first, but both versions are interesting, yet different. It depends on your mood which you'll prefer.
Joe
Review by Joe ★★★★ 1
Crisp, high-contrast black-and-white cinematography, a cool score, a stone-cold revenge plot, and a whole bunch of reaction shots of a cat.
And I don't know if this is "Politically" "Incorrect" or "Off-puttingly" "Boorish" but there's a pretty sexy girl-on-girl scene as well.
Like a (marginally) classier Greek version of the 60s American “roughies”, this is a nicely shot black-and-white erotic Eurosleaze delight. It’s a little slow to start, but the outrageous taboo-busting montage towards the end makes it all worthwhile. In fact, in terms of sex and shocking violence, this is surprisingly ahead of its time.
Side note — I hadn’t realised that Joe D’Amato’s stunning trash masterpiece Emanuelle and Francois was a remake of this film!
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