Here's a cheap very watchable Grindhouse Sexploitation Noir that is all set in Las Vegas.
Directed by William Collins and written by Oliver and June Drake (Liz Marshall) husband and wife.
Prolific writer Oliver's last credit was 2017 his first was Cyclone of the Range 1927. 151 writing credits, mostly film and TV Westerns. Liz Marshall appeared in TV Westerns 26 Men and Gunsmoke.
One off director William Collins and Cinematographer William G. Troiano (Scream of the Butterfly, She Freak) give us a neo realist view of a way off the Fremont strip, fringe Las Vegas circa 1967.
"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)
The film stars Robert Dix (I'll Cry Tomorrow, Forbidden Planet, Mike Hammer TV Series, Live and Let Die) his last credit was in 2021. Dix plays Jeff Murray. Gillian Simpson plays Lori McCall a B-girl hooker. Kay Crooks plays Hatty McCall Lori's stepmother, Richard Jeffries a bit part TV actor plays Frankie, John 'Bud' Cardos another bit part TV actor (Hells Angels on Wheels) is a gay piano player, Liz Marshall (26 Men and Gunsmoke) plays Jeff's Mother, Perry Dell plays Harmony, with Jackie De Witt, and Cay Conway (as probably two of the victims)
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| Robert Dix as Jeff Murray |
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| Gillian Simpson as Lori McCall |
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| Kay Crooks as Hatty McCall |
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| Liz Marshall (screenwriter) as Mrs. Murray Jeff's Mother |
After a movie trailer like title credit sequence, (with BTY the" Las Vegas Strangler" title), we cut to a Motel.
Night.
From the clues in the film i.e. our star Jeff Murray's family owns a cotton gin probably in Pahrump, about an hour West of Las Vegas.
Pahrump.
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Its the usual two story with balcony, hot sheet / resident flop for single retirees type of dump. Its all but attached to Hatty's Hideout a cocktail lounge that also serves dinner. I'd assume it's Hatty's Motel too. This way Hatty maximizes her retiree profits.
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Cue the sexy woman saxophone leitmotif. Out of the ground floor end room door comes Lori, a raven haired woman dressed in a tight shirt with metallic belt and white top. She has her jacket thrown over one shoulder, a small compact in one hand, and with hips swinging and jiggling breasts she walks off the sidewalk and into the gravel parking lot heading towards the cocktail lounge.
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She stops right where a big (I'd guess red) arrow points down with a curve to Lori. There, she stops and takes one last look in the mirror of her compact before heading into the lounge.
Hatty's Hideout has small bar that sits in a painted brick alcove off the dining / gambling area. It's a "j" shaped affair with sort of tree stump bar stools. It's separated from the one arm bandits and dining area by short partition walls. Behind the left wall we see a juke box, the painted brick wall behind it doesn't compliment what looks like the fake z-brick fronted by a wagon wheel support that holds up the wooden bar top.
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Hatty: It's about time you showed up Lori, it's gonna be a good night.
Lori: Yea, for who?
Hatty: You look pretty as a queen sweetie. [touches Lori's hair and back]
Lori: Please don't handle the merchandize.
Lori pulls some change out of her compact and puts on our catchy rockabilly theme song "Ain't No Tears For The Damned" She starts to twist to it, attracting the attention of the patrons, and particularly a greasy looking character named Joe.
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| Joe |
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Into this setting walks Jeff Murray a handsome cotton farmer who Lori has a crush on. Jeff parks himself by the right partition wall at a small round table in front of a cigarette machine.
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They make some small talk about how he hasn't been around, and Jeff explains about all the chores that his mother makes him do around the ranch. Lori tells him to drink and relax and tells him "if there's anything else he wants let her know," then Lori goes back to the bar.
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Hatty: What's a matter with you Lori, why don't you try a little harder with Jeff. After all you act like you're tongue tided around him, you know....
Lori: Don't go into that Ma, I know it text and verse. It's not like its "our' payroll that keeps us going.
Hatty: Knock it off Lori he could mean a lot to us.
Lori: Did it ever occur to you that he may be a little particular of who he takes up with?
Hatty: Particular my foot men are men, and they all got one thing in common.
Lori: You should know Ma. [Lori goes back to dancing]
Jeff watches her getting in the groove of a replay of "Ain't No Tears For The Damned " again. Joe at the bar drinking a can of Coors is watching too.
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Joe likes what he sees.
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He got a mattress in the back. Lori hops in and Joe starts to kiss her, unbuttoning her blouse. He cups a hand on her breast and starts to drive dangerous curves across dirty sheets.
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At the bar Lori scowling hands her stepmother her compact, Hatty removes the ten spot and hands it back.
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Hatty: Wipe that look off your face it's bad for business.
Lori: I'd be happier crawling around in a nice clean sewer.
Lori heads to the restroom to "clean up."
Jeff heads over to the bar to square up with Hatty. Soon Lori returns from the restroom followed shortly there after by Joe who comes back in accusing Lori of stealing a twenty out of his billfold. Joe confronts her and rips the compact from he hand. It falls on the floor breaking open, no twenty. Joe reaches over and into Lori's bra and pulls out his missing twenty. Hatty apologizes for Lori's behavior. Hatty asks Lori if she's been stealing from her other customers. Lori tells her "anything to get out of this pig stye."
Joe's tells Hatty that he'll show her how to straighten Lori out, and he slaps her. This brings Jeff into action as Lori's defender, and he floors Joe with a punch. Jeff grabs Lori by the hand and tells her to "come on I've had enough of this place," and they hop into Jeff's '66 Chevy Impala convertible for a drive into Vegas.
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| "come on I've had enough of this place" |
Here we get some great archival footage of Las Vegas Blvd. and Fremont Street circa 1966 along with a some of the acts and shows that were in the casinos back then, i.e. a song and dance by Tacey Robbins, a surreal-ish merry-go-round floor show with topless dancers, a bingo hall and casinos. All the while Jeff and Lori are getting more and more smashed.
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A Las Vegas Sampler circa 1968
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| Drinking and Driving |
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In the morning Lori wakes up naked in bed with a wedding ring on her finger. Lori thinks it's a joke but Jeff reminds her that they got married at 4 o'clock in the morning at the Little Chapel of the West.
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Jeff wants to take her home to mother but Lori protests that she can't meet his mother in her whore clothes but Jeff assures her that they'll stop on the strip and get her some new threads.
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At the ranch it starts going Noirsville when Lori meets Jeff's mother Madeline and their hired hand Harmony. Mama doesn't like Lori. She tells Harmony to take Lori's things to the guest room, as she has it out with Jeff.
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Meanwhile that's not the only thing going Noirsville. On one wall of the ranch house is a life size portrait of Madeline in an evening gown and long black gloves holding the hand of a longhaired child in a velvet Little Lord Fauntleroy suit. The kid looks like Jeff. In case we haven't gotten it yet there's a shot of Jeff with the child's face over his shoulder. It's not his sister it's him and he's very, very, very, sensitive about it.
Jeff apologizes for his mother, but tells her that Lori is his wife and get used to it. Back in the guest bedroom Lori tells Jeff that she'll move her things into his room, but Jeff suggests that she stay where she is for the time being. They kiss and Lori lays down with Jeff on the bed but the make out session never gets started. Jeff tells her he has "work" to do.
Jeff walks out and stands by the full size painting of him and his mother, as he lights a cigarette we hear a Twilight Zone-ish mechanical whirring sound. He flickers the lit match back and forth in front of his child face on the painting. When his mother walks into the room she asks him in an assumptive manner "why aren't you with your little bride, are you having problems already?"
Jeff says nothing walks out of the house and hops in the Chevy and splits for Vegas.
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Hours later, a clearly boozed up Jeff is stumbling East away from the casinos into the cheap dive motel district on Fremont. He stops to light a cigarette. He pulls out some matches, but in his unsteady state is having trouble lighting one.
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Early in the AM when Jeff gets back Lori is waiting. She knocks on Jeffs door, He at first thinks it's his mother and he tells her to come in, but it's Lori who steps into the bedroom. Jeff tells he that she shouldn't be here, but she tells him she his wife and has a right to be there.
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| Jeff can't get it up |
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We cut to Jeff heading into a cocktail piano club. He sits at the bar orders a drink and then turns away from the bar and starts making eyes at the obviously gay piano player. How Noir of them?
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While this is going on a brunette walks into the lounge. She walks towards the bar, sits on a stool and also sets her eyes on the piano player.
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Noirsville
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| Possibly an insert (see below) |
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| Possibly an insert (see below) |
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| Possibly an insert (see below) |
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| Possibly an insert (see below) |
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| Possibly an insert (see below) |
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It interesting to speculate how this was all put together. Did somebody win a jackpot and figured he could try and cash in more with a Sexploitation / Psycho flick, using the actors currently in town?
It looks like some of the cast was connected with the screenwriters Oliver and June Drake through 26 Men - It was about the Arizona Rangers and I even remember watching it as a kid, it had a chorus theme song. The rest of the players and extras look like locals and friends and the murder victims were either showgirls or strippers.
*inserts - One more tidbit of info, knowing a bit from reading about the grindhouse theater business, this film only had to play two weeks in one grindhouse theater to make ALL its money back. Because of the ever evolving obscenity laws, what you could show on the screen was becoming more and more permissible. To keep up to date with the "raincoat crowd" and on the "cutting edge" producers would film new scenes and add inserts to films already "in the can."
Its a nice time capsule of mid sixties Las Vegas, with a watchable story. 6.5/10.
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