Sisters in Leather (1969)

Directed by Zoltan G Spencer
Starring Pat Barrington, Kathy Williams, Karen Thomas
Rated X
USA

"What a hell of a mess."

From the courageous cat who brought us Terror at Orgy Castle comes this time worn tale of a sap and his errant penis. Middle-aged living wreck Joe finds himself being seduced by a Dolly (Karen Thomas, Suburban Pagans), a bubbly blonde teenager. How he got into this position is unknown. It just happened. So there he is, slurping away on her neck in broad daylight, his car parked not too inconspicuously under a clump of trees. Suddenly, out of nowhere, somebody in a black leather jacket, black hat, shades, and gloves pulls a knife on the dude, shows him a Polaroid of this very tryst, and informs him through gritted teeth that the girl is underage. If he doesn't want the photo getting to his wife/boss/priest/mother, than he'll need to cough up $2000.

"We'll be in touch", sneers the blackmailer, and sends him on his way.

Joe has really fucked up with this one. He already has a beautiful wife back home, Mary (Kathy Williams, The Babysitter), who dutifully waits from clad in skimpy lingerie, ready and willing to satisfy his desires as soon as he gets in the door. Unfortunately he's so shaken up by the shakedown that he cannot properly perform. Men are all scum, aren't they?

Dolly calls him the next day to schedule a rendezvous to get the two grand. He shows up, but loses his cool once again and ends up getting naked with her. This time, the black-clad biker chick bashes him in the head until he's unconscious. Then they take the money and haul ass out of there.

The next day, our robbed and beaten pal decides to do a little gumshoe work. He aims to figure out exactly who these monsters are, and then bring them down. All he's seen so far of the knifer-puncher is a black-clad jacket with a lightning bolt. Properly assuming said jacket belongs to a motorcycle enthusiast, he starts searching around the local biker bars for clues. The first one he walks into features a busty tabledancer (Pat Barrington, The Girl With the Hungry Eyes) shaking her titties, so he watches her for ten minutes. He'll never get to the bottom of things at this rate. Eventually he wanders outside to sniff around the bikes. One of the local toughs tells him he's barking up the wrong tree and demands that he scram. He does.

Meanwhile, the Sisters in Leather of the film's title are not through with our hapless hero yet. While he's out looking for them, they have plans for his lingerie-wearing young bride. They drop by his place to pay Mary a visit, showing her the incriminating photos and convincing her that he's nothing but a lily-livered philanderer. Which is true. Then they take her out for a picnic (!). A picnic that soon devolves into a topless photo shoot, naked motorcycle rides, and girl-on-girl suntan lotion rubdowns.

The picnic is about to reach full lesbo orgy when Mary decides that she's not into this scene. I mean, topless rubdowns are one thing, but kissing girls? Yuck! They give her the photo for safekeeping and let her loose.

Strangely, when she gets home she changes her mind. She leaves the photo for her double-crossing hubby to find, and then heads off to stay with her new girl-happy friends.
Her astute hubby follows her and watches the devious plan unfold through the window.

First, the lezzy bikers just let her go to sleep in the other room while they have champagne sex, but the very next day, her initiation into the Sisterhood begins in earnest. Which, as far as I can tell, involves copious amounts of booze and some light-hearted goofin' off on the couch.

Joe heads over the biker joint to find the lightning bolt gang. He tells 'em he's located the ratfinks that stole their emblem, and even worse, "They're dykes!" Naturally, this means war.

Meanwhile, Mary finally gets a clue as to what this is all about when the girls rip her shirt off and drag her to the floor.
"No!" She screams in protest. "I'm not that way!"
"How do you know until you try it?" Asks Dolly.
Good point!

But then the bikers bust in and ruin everything. Or they make everything better. Depends on what you're into.
At any rate, a topless knife fight is involved.

A shamelessly skuzzy anti-epic from the height of the grindhouse era, Sisters in Leather is, on one hand, a bit of cheat: despite the title and the tagline ("No man or woman is safe from these love-hungry hellcats!"), this is not really a biker chick movie at all, and only one of the girls actually wears leather. On the other hand, it is relentlessly grimy, and the nudity is pretty wall-to-wall, so let's call it even. As long as you don't mind threadbare production values, fuzzy black and white photography, wooden acting, wobbly overdubbing, and low-rent fake jazz - or even better, if you love all that stuff - there's plenty to like about this kooky sexploitation romp.

PS: Zoltan G. Spencer disappeared at the dawn of the 70's. No one's seen him for 40 years. I suspect lesbian bikers were involved.

Sisters in Leather is available from Something Weird Video.

- Ken McIntyre

The Girl With the Hungry Eyes (1967)

Directed by William Rotsler
Starring Cathy Crowfoot, Vicky Dee, Pat Barrington, Scott Avery
Rated R
USA

"I was a little drinky-drunky."

William Rotsler (RIP) was a science-fiction super fan who supplemented his career of drawing cartoons for SF mags with the odd dip into softcore, sexploitation, and melodrama. Hot on the heels of the more well-known (although no less turgid) Agony of Love (1966), Rotsler wrote and directed this woozy, wrong-headed snoozer about an snarly butch lesbian and her tender girl-toy. It wobbles precariously between half-assed morality tale and balls-first exploitation, but never really commits to either. So what's left? Mush, pretty much.

Kitty (Vicky Dee) and Tiger Cat (Cathy Crowfoot) are a couple of lez-leaning hot tamales cruising the highway in their hot rod. They pass by clean-cut Tom (director Rotsler), who is standing on the side of the road, watching steam rise from his clunker of a car. At Kitty's behest, they stop for him and agree to give him a lift to the next town. Kitty, clearly the bi-curious one, plies him with booze. Before long, she and Tom are sucking face in the passenger seat while Tiger drives on, quietly seething.

Finally, she has enough of this hetero bullshit, and stops the car at the edge of some woods. She tells Tom to get out, but to her horror, Kitty goes with him. They tromp off into the forest, and proceed to make sweet late 60's love in the grass.

Jealous lover Tiger follows them and watches from afar, alternately fantasizing about whipping Kitty's naked back and stabbing Tom to death with a knife. Eventually, she can take no more. She grabs a large rock and smashes Tom's skull in with it.

Kitty's a little shaken up, but Tiger reminds her of all the horrible men in her past, and then assures her that everything's going to be just fine. They go home and Tiger prepares for Kitty's birthday party, while Kitty takes a long and soapy shower, and ponders about Tiger and Tom and whether she's really happy in this controlling relationship.

And then she flashes back to her time with previous boyfriend Brian (Scott Avery), a harmless bearded chubbo who she seemed to like pretty well. So what happened to Brian? Who knows? Tiger probably chopped him and fed him to some wild dogs.

And so, the birthday party. Seems nice enough. Cake, champagne, lesbians, cigarettes. Everybody seems to like the cigs better than the cake. Dunno why. Maybe lesbians really like a good smoke. Things heat up later on when a one of the girls (Pat Barrington, Orgy of the Dead) strips down to her panties and dances around. The party ends early, however, when a butch chick hits on Kitty, and Tiger decks her. Unable to cope with the sudden burst of birthday party violence, Kitty takes off, running down the street in a vain attempt to get away from her new lesbianic life.

Tiger chases after her, but Kitty appears to be long gone. The spurned lover knocks on doors all over town, asking lesbians with crazy haircuts if they've seen her girl, but no dice.

Meanwhile, Kitty goes to see her old beau Brian. Turns out he's not dead, just sort of a douchebag. Kitty bawls and spills the beans about Tiger's attack on Tom. The bearded know-it-all responds by explaining to her about how lesbianism is doomed to fail.

"That way is destructive, not constructive," he says. "It's death, not life." And then he tells her he's made of puppy tails and dreams. He's not that helpful a guy, really.

After zooming around all day, Tiger finally figures out where Kitty is. She bangs on Brian's door, and when he answers, she assaults him with a switchblade. So he punches her in the kidneys, and knocks her the fuck out. The end.

So, clearly there's a 'moral' here. And the moral is: All Lesbians are Evil. Also, All Men are Beasts, but at least they're, you know, normal beasts. Welcome to the 60's!

Although it started out strong, hinting at a no-budget, Sapphic-centered Faster Pussycat cop, Girl With the Hungry Eyes quickly devolves into a series of long and pointless flashbacks that pad the running time, but do nothing to advance the story. It's not particularly sleazy or lurid, either, especially given the era it sprang from. It does, however, prominently feature the exquisite bosoms of Vicky Dee - to say nothing of her still cutting-edge, two-toned punk-chick haircut - so that's something. It's not much, but it's something.

Girl With the Hungry Eyes is available from Something Weird Video.

- Ken McIntyre