Welcome to Arrow Beach (1973) A Hippy Chick Horror Noir

"An American Giallo"

Directed by Laurence Harvey. 

Written by Wallace C. Bennett and Jack Gross Jr. from Wallace C. Bennett's story. Cinematography by Gerald Perry Finnerman and Music by Tony Camillo 

The film stars Laurence Harvey (Walk On The Wild Side, The Manchurian Candidate) as Jason Henry.

Laurence Harvey as Jason Henry

Harvey's fist film in 1948 was House Of Darkness, a Brit Horror film. He also appeared in what looks like some Brit Noir, his first ,Man On The Run (1949) looks like it may be worth checking out for sure.

The first time I remember seeing Harvey was when he portrayed Col. Travis in John Wayne's The Alamo. I didn't like him. Not only was the character he portrayed, a dislikeable, stuff shirt, officer but equally a cliche southern gentleman. For some reason also seemed phony at the core. 

I found out years later that he wasn't an English actor at all, as I had first surmised. He was born Zvi Mosheh Skikne of Lithuanian parents who in 1934 emigrated to South Africa when he was about six. So his Brit accent was a learned act too, strained through Lithuanian, South African English and Afrikaans.  

There's always something that seems not quite right with his portrayals. You got to wonder how he got cast in some of these parts in the first place. For instance. He's a Texan Dove Linkhorn, in Walk on the Wild Side, or even as Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate, it's hard to believe he was a cowboy or an American soldier. He adds that something is a bit off in the films I've seen him in. This actually works in The Manchurian Candidate because we know he's fucked up and been brainwashed by the commies. Here in Welcome of Arrow Beach he's again portraying an ex U.S.A.F. officer this time with some serious PTSD, he could just have more believably been a RAF officer, no. 

Also starring are Joanna Pettet (Casino Royale) as Grace Henry Jason's sister. Noir vets Stuart Whitman (The Day The Earth Stood Still, Crime of Passion, The Girl In Black Stockings, Hell Bound, Murder Inc.) as Deputy Rakes,, and John Ireland (The Gangster, Raw Deal, The Scarf, Party Girl) as Sheriff Duke Bingham, Meg Foster (Thumb Tripping, Carny, They Live) as Robbin Stanley, Gloria LeRoy (Barfly) as Ginger, David Macklin as Alex Heath, Dodie Heath as Felice, Altovise Davis as Deputy Molly, Elizabeth St. Clair as Head Nurse, Robert Lussier as Deputy Lippencourt, Jesse Vint as Hot Rod Driver, Tony Ballen as Pharmacist, John Hart as Doctor, Andy Romano as Bryant, and Florence Lake as Landlady.

Meg Foster as Robbin Stanley

John Ireland as Sheriff Duke Bingham

Joanna Pettet as Grace

Stuart Whitman as Deputy Rakes

David Macklin as Alex Heath

                                                                 Gloria LeRoy as Ginger

For me this is Meg Foster's film. She plays a very convincing flower child / hippy chick. She has the look, language, and the attitude down. She even played the same type of role just the year before in Thumb Tripping a road pic about her and Michael Burns playing highway roulette by accepting every hitch-hiking ride offered, no matter who and a lot of free loving between Big Sur and Russian River. 

Your eyes are on her whenever she is on the screen. You'd have thunk she would have had a bigger film career but she started in TV and pretty much stayed there for the most part, only doing occasional films.

Director Harvey was dying from stomach cancer as he was acting in this and looks it, he again feels not quite right, off, which is compounded by his illness.  It works and he knew it. The film comes out surprisingly decent with some nice stylistic touches, considering that he was working on it supposedly on his deathbed. 

Story

The film opens with a shot of a beach early morning. A man and a dog walking the golden wash and we hear it breaking against ochre sands with a gentle Pacific beyond. Superimposed upon this is calming scene is this:

There's a witch's tale that once a man has eaten human flesh he will do it again, and again, and again.

This is followed by a slow pan from the beach to the Pacific Coast Highway. We cut to a close up of Robbin Stanley a cool brunette hippy chick, wearing bell bottoms, a wool cloche hat, and a poncho, carrying her worldly belongings in two leather shoulder bags. 

Robbin is hitchhiking heading North. She finally get a ride from Gino in a canary yellow model "A" hot rod. Gino turns out to be a kook. He goes speeding past Deputy Rakes sitting in a speed trap and when Rakes starts chasing him, Gino puts the pedal to the metal hitting 100 mph. 

Jesse Vint as Gino

Rakes can't keep up. Robbin is now scared of course and asks to be let out but to no avail. Rakes radios headquarters, tells them what's going on. The Sheriff Duke Bingham asks his dispatcher Deputy Molly if the construction work is still going on ahead of the speeding rod and she answers affirmative. Duke tells Molly to have an ambulance out there too.

Of course Gino hits the work zone going way too fast. tries to negotiate a right angle turn and flips his rod. He gets mangled Robbin is just shaken up. 

Duke and Rakes are there and extricate Robbin. Rakes finds some coke in Gino's glove box. Robbin tells them he just picker her up and she knows nothing about it. Duke asks her how old she is. She tells him 18 and has her ID to prove it. He remarks that she's a long way from home, and he lets her slide. 

Robbin gathers her leather shoulder bags and walks off towards a sign the says Welcome To Arrow Beach. 

Here is where the credits begin, with a song sung by Lou Rawls. This is two years after Play Misty For Me and Roberta Flack's hit First Time Ever I saw Your Face. Maybe Harvey was attempting to mimic Eastwoods music selections. It doesn't come close. 

We do get a California beach montage that includes Robbin in the distance walking through a nude beach area where adults and children together frolic in the surf, which segues into other beach shots and her passing other beachcombers. When we get to the end of this credit sequence Robbin is walking along a deserted stretch of beach below high bluffs crowned with Monterey pines. 

We cut to a shot of a telescope, and then a giant eye fills the screen.

Robbin finally stops for a rest, sitting on the sand. She pulls the leftover sandwich and feeds half of it to the gulls. Then she decides to go for a swim.

When she stands up and starts shucking off her clothes the cut to the giant eyeball registers surprize. We get a fun in the sun and surf sequence which segues into Robbin clothed and sleeping on the beach. 

She is soon joined by a man in tan slacks wearing a bulky pea coat that magnifies his slightly gaunt appearance, he's hatless with immaculate hair, and the face that sticks out of a gray turtleneck is half hidden by large sunglasses. 

He wakes up Robbin and introduces himself as Jason Henry, he tells he that he lives on top of the bluff. Robbin apologizes for being on his beach. She tells him she tried to feed the gulls part of her lunch but even they didn't want it. Robbin by her body language and flirty answers is acting a bit turned on by Jason. 

Jason seems charmed and asks if she like to come up to his house for something better to eat. Robbin is hesitant at first at such a direct come on, until Jason mentions that he lives their with his sister. That sounds safe....

The first inkling that things are not quite as innocent as they seem is when we first see Jason's sister Grace, because when she sees Jason and Robbin approaching the house she immediately locks a certain particular door. 

Jason introduces Grace to Robbin, and explains to Grace that he has invited her to dinner. Grace makes some excuses about not being prepared but Jason assure her that there will be plenty of food. He then takes Robbin out into the great room and tells her he'll be right back. 

Jason goes back and argues with Grace, who is angry because he's promised not to bring any more women to the house. But Jason percistantly wheedles at Grace telling her that he likes Robbin a lot. She finally accedes, and Jason also retrieves the key she locked "the" door with.

So, so far things still appear somewhat normal. Grace, appears to be an overprotective sister. While Grace is preparing dinner, Jason takes Robbin for a walk as the sun sets, here we get another nice sunset beach montage, set to music. Jason also basically explains to Robbin, to not mind Grace so much,  because she sometimes gets wound a bit too tight.

Things start tipping Noirsville at dinner where as Robbin eats a bloody rare steak, Jason starts losing it in subtle facial expressions and ticks, as he is watching her. 

Grace notices, Robbin does not. Here we get zoomed in close-ups of forks stabbing a rare steak, a knife slicing off a piece and the steak going into Robbin's mouth. 

The close-ups increase inter cut with both eye close-ups with Robbins eyes smiling, Jasons eyes wincing, and Joana's eyes widening and quick cuts to what looks like a police officer, a dead one. Grace knows something is up with Jason, while Robbin remains oblivious. 

After dinner Jason tells Grace that he's asked Robbin to stay the night. 

Grace is not to happy about it and tries to dissuade Robbin from staying, but Jason comes back into the kitchen telling Robbin he'll tatke her to her room. Before they leave Robbin asks for some dish soap so that she can take a hot bubble bath. 

Grace tells her that oh she has some, it was a present from Jason. 

They all ride up to the room in a small elevator. Jason goes to get the bubble bath bottle while Grace shows Robbin the bedroom. Jason arrives back with the bubble bath, and wishes Grace a good night, and just before Grace departs after Jason she tells Robbin the house rules it to lock all bedrooms at night. 

Robbin draws her bubble bath.

We cut to Jason trying to light a cigarette in a darkened room. As he attempts to flick the lighter on we start to hear a whistling sound getting louder and louder. 

Jason moves to a mirror and as he gets his cigarette lit and clows out the smoke at the mirror we go into a flashback.

Its in Black & White, the whistling sound was a plane falling out of the sky. Its Korea. We see a wing on fire and survivors shuffling past the our view. Jason, and his surviving crewman. one by one the men fall down. when the last one drops we see Jason pull out his knife and it dissolves into the earlier scene of a knife and fork cutting meat.

Jason comes out of his flashback. The mirror is a medicine cabinet. Jason opens the door and grabs a rubber glove, handkerchief and a bottle of chloroform. 

He heads down the hall with his "tools" but Grace hears him and calls out to him. She knows his M.O. He ditches the chloroform in a plant and goes into Grace's room. It's here where we deduce that Grace and Jason are brother and sister with benefits, during their conversation and their tender kisses. 

Jason calms Grace down, and makes her take a sedative. As she starts dropping off to sleep she tells Jason that she told Robbin to lock her door and that chloroform is not good for plants. 

Thwarted Jason needs some other relief. He gets into the elevator and heads down. 

In the middle of the night Robbin is awakened by some strange swish-thunk sounds emanating from somewhere in the house. She gets up, and gets dressed and goes out in the hall calling for both Grace and Jason, when no one answers she follows the noises downstairs ending up in the kitchen. 

The sounds are coming from the door that leads down to the basement. 

Noirsville

This is worth a look. It's dated but very entertaining with some nice camera shots and some interesting stylistic sequences interspersed here and there. Meg Foster is very convincing as is Harvey as the ex Fly Boy nut job / canibal. 7/10

From IMDb - 

Life's a beach and then you die.

From a technical standpoint, Welcome To Arrow Beach is not a particularly good film: the direction by its star Laurence Harvey is largely uninspired, the editing is frequently clumsy, and the cinematography is nothing special. That said, the film is still hugely entertaining thanks to its incredibly lurid story, a likeable turn by a young Meg Foster, Harvey's unhinged performance, and a wonderfully groovy '70s vibe.

Foster plays teenage runaway Robbin Stanley, who learns the hard way that hitch-hiking isn't a good idea, narrowly surviving a crash after being picked up by a coke-snorting hot-rodder. Sent on her way by the police, Robbin wanders onto a private beach where she meets Jason Henry, who lives in the big house overlooking the sea. Jason invites Robbin to have dinner with him; she is hesitant at first, but accepts when she learns that the man shares the house with his sister Grace (Joanna Pettet). After dinner, the Henry's suggest that Robbin stays the night, which she does. However, as she lays in bed, she is disturbed by a strange noise emanating from the basement and goes to see what is causing it.

What follows is a decidedly twisted tale that involves incest and cannibalism, with Robbin discovering Jason's terrible secret - that he feeds on the flesh of people who stray onto his beach. Managing to escape the house, the girl is unable to convince the police of her story, having been framed as a drug addict by the conniving Jason. Joined by medical tech Alex Heath (David Macklin), Robbin sneaks into the Henry's house to investigate.

Despite being terminally ill at the time of filming, Harvey throws himself into the role of demented cannibal with gusto, and adds to the unsettling vibe with his character's uncomfortably close relationship with his sister. The film keeps the gore to a minimum, but what there is works well, with the murder of a past-her-prime glamour model seeing the red stuff splashed around liberally in quick edits, and the final reveal of Jason's horrific handiwork being as shocking as anything to be seen in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

BA_Harrison