Directed by Richard Griffin
Starring Michael Reed, Sarah Nicklin, Ruth Sullivan Unrated USA
"Get Down. To Hell!"
It's the 70's. A skinny creep in a wig named Rex (Michael Reed) meets a crazy-eyed redhead named Rita (Ruth Sullivan) at the disco. They have a fling, but the next night, Rex dances with his favorite porn star, Amoreena Jones (Sarah Nicklin), causing Rita to flip the fuck out and lay a whammy on both of ‘em.
The next day, Rex is enlisted into Amoreena’s latest skinflick, and halfway through the proceedings, Amoreena and the twin topless rollergirls are possessed by demons. They murder the entire crew. Rex escapes with Amoreena and, as they slither around the disco underworld, they search for a cure for her affliction. They need…you guessed it, a disco exorcist.
Directed by Richard Griffin (Nun of That), Disco Exorcist is another retro-grindhouse flick, complete with the scratched-film filter, the “missing reels” inserts, the brutal jumpcuts, etc, all of it tossed into the mix in a vain attempt to make it look like something it is not, AKA micro-budgeted and shot-on-video. Every 70’s cliché you can think of is jammed into every frame, from polyester to beaded curtains, lava lamps to Quaalude references, discos to porn theaters, Satanists to orgies. Of course, not everything that happened in the 70’s happened at the same time, like they inevitably do in these throwback opuses, but you gotta give it to Griff, he broke the bank on the goddamn thrift store knick-knacks. Still, on this level (sub-basement), it’s almost impossible to convincingly portray the ugly splendor of 70’s America (the visionaryVivanotwithstanding), and all the retro-trappings on display here are really just distractions. He could’ve easily set this story up in the present, and it would have worked just fine. That being said, there’s tons of bared-boobs, blood spurting everywhere, a few seriously kooky set-ups (the climactic, occult-tinged orgy is pretty inspired), and the cast are all on full-throttle. It’s definitely not the 70’s – or even a reasonably facsimile thereof – but it is a groovy, goofy good time.
Directed by Pete Walker Starring Anouska Hempel, Eric Pohlman, Damien Thomas Rated R UK
“If the fuzz pick me up, I'll get busted for pushin' porn!”
In 1998, Anouska Hempel bought the rights to Tiffany Jones, effectively stymieing any further releases of the film in the UK. ‘Why? What could possibly be scandalous enough?’ you might ask. Well, as far as I can tell, it’s because as the titular character she shows her boobs and Hempel is, as of 1980, married to wealthy insurance tycoon Sir Mark Weinberg and therefore a member of high society more correctly referred to as Lady Weinberg. Or if you’re one of her high society friends, Nou-Nou.
I’m no expert on the nuances of British high society, but I gather it is considered most improper for one to have shown one’s tits in a film prior to one’s being inducted into high society. It is, on the other hand, considered entirely proper for one to use one’s excessive amounts of money for the censorship of past embarrassments.
Unfortunately, we live in a time where we have this thing called “the Internet”, which makes it really bloody hard to censor one’s past embarrassments. Especially when said embarrassments were available on VHS for 25 years.
Hempel tried to do the same thing with Russ Meyer’s Black Snake, which she also headlined. She managed to stop a UK theatrical rerelease in the late ‘90s, but the DVD rights proved unobtainable – the film is readily available as part of Arrow Films’ terrific Meyer box set.
Ol’ Russ, incidentally, wasn’t much of a fan of Hempel, who reputedly only stepped into the part after the previously booked lead OD’d. “Hempel?” he said. “Tiny tits and a big mouth. We had a stand-in for the tits and wouldn't let her speak.”
To be honest, neither film is particularly scandalous. Without the nudity, Tiffany Jones could be remade this year starring some kind of pop singer and marketed to teenage girls.
That would actually be more appropriate, since the nudity – and don’t get me wrong here, it comes close to saving the film – is kinda out of place, considering where Tiffany Jones comes from. The film is based on a comic strip that ran in newspapers from 1964 until sometime in the ‘70s which was written by Jenny Butterworth and illustrated beautifully (just check out the line-work on the hair in the above piece) by Pat Tourret.
The strip was the story of a British girl who moved to the big city and became a model and lived the life of an empowered and successful young lady. With that in mind, it’s a little confusing as to why the movie is, basically, about Tiffany trying to bring down the dictatorial government of a small Eastern European nation.
Okay, very confusing. Utterly bewildering. Fucking mystifying, in fact.
Tiffany’s still a model in the film, as the pre-credits introduction reminds us. While filming a commercial on a floating bed in the ocean, she has to dive off it as it begins to drift out to sea. “Who'd be a model?” she says awkwardly to the camera, sitting soggily on the shore. “I would!”
Following the credits, in the nation of Zirdana in Eastern Europe some rebels are sneaking around the office of the nation’s dictator. Along with a bunch of other files, they find a picture of Tiffany, though they’re unsure of who she is.
Back in London, Tiffany is wearing a towel at home with boyfriend Guy (Ray Brooks) and flatmate Jo (Susan Sheers), although Guy pretty quickly leaves because, I dunno, he and Tiffany apparently have a relationship that doesn’t involve kissing or touching or talking or hanging around each other at all. So Jo and Tiffany just watch the news together.
There’s an interview on with the visiting President Boris Jabal (Eric Pohlman) of, you guessed it, Zirdana. “That man has cruel eyes,” says Tiffany.
“He's rather sexy, I thought,” chimes in Jo.
Jo has pretty low standards, I guess.
The action moves to the president’s temporary British lodgings, where it turns out he’s also trying to find out the identity of Tiffany. Somehow – it’s not really explained – he does and his underling approaches Tiffany’s manager to set up a meeting under the pretence of a photo shoot.
Tiffany is driven to the mansion and is brought in to see the president, who orders her to take her top off and then confesses that he’s obsessed with her while he holds a candlestick.
He’s also not real good with the romancing. “Come, kiss your president!” he demands.
“You're not my president! I have a monarch!” Tiffany says, patriotically. He gets the idea that she’s not going to have sex with him there and then, and invites her to the opera the next night. She agrees, puts her top back on and leaves.
While she’s heading off an old woman protests the dictatorship by jumping on the moving car.
Next day, Tiffany is on her way out to another job when she unexpectedly runs into Guy in the hallway of her house while topless. They have a short polite conversation and then she heads off to her photo shoot.
Turns out it’s just another ruse though, and the man who booked the session is actually Prince Salvator (Damien Thomas, Twins of Evil), the son of the murdered King of Zirdana. He does at least take a couple of pictures anyway, while sitting in a throne.
Turns out the King was murdered, of course, by the president, and the Prince wants Tiffany to help him back to his rightful place as head of Zidana. She pretty much just takes his word for it. Why not, right?
She heads along to the opera with the president – even though it’s Guy’s birthday, the poor bastard – and then heads back to the mansion afterwards to eat some chicken. The president once again throws himself at/on her, but she admonishes him for his behaviour.
“Boris, don't spoil my admiration of you,” she says. “I know it's not the real you. Only fascist pigs and bourgeois people behave like that.”
Then she heads off again, driven by the president’s double-chinned chauffeur.
Turns out he’s not who he says he is either. He’s working for the Zidanian rebels, who are undercover in London as kitchen workers. They strip her and tie her to the kitchen table and threaten her if she doesn’t reveal her connection to the president.
“If you refuse,” their leader says, “Stefan here will ladle the consommé julienne onto those naked shoulders of yours until you tell the truth.”
She tells them the truth, but they don’t really believe her. Eventually, she’s left alone with Georg (Geoffrey Hughes, Onslow from super dull British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances) - the fat, stupid one – and manages to convince him to let her go.
Meanwhile, Jo and Guy are at home wondering where she is, but not really wondering too hard. Actually, they’re just having a cup of tea and some cake, which is probably what all British people do when they’re worried.
Tiffany – wearing a chef’s uniform – heads around to see the Prince and has a bit of a nap there. She also passes on some information she found out about an arms deal that the president plans to attend. Together, they cook up a plan: Tiffany will send the rebels to the arms deal, while she detains the president at a model’s union picnic.
She also goes to the arms dealers and pretends to be a prostitute and sets up a meeting for later that night, after the arms deal. No idea why.
So, the president turns up to the picnic at the appointed time. He’s not there for long before all the girls start taking their clothes off. What follows is a good five minutes of ‘70s British nudity, which is always great. In fact, it’s the highlight of the entire film and there’s cake and boobs and everything. Everything!
Eventually they convince the president to strip down too, and feed him grapes or something. While this is happening, Guy surreptitiously takes pictures of the whole thing.
Meanwhile, Tiffany steals his uniform and hands it off to the rebels, who use it to impersonate him at the arms deal. They organise to meet the arms dealers at an air strip later that night to hand over payment. Unfortunately, the president manages to get the information about this deal out of his chauffeur.
Tiffany turns up to meet the arms dealers, along with the Prince, who’s dressed as a woman. Then she makes out with the Prince in a phone booth after she calls Guy to tell him to bring the pictures of the picnic.
Everyone – seriously, pretty much the whole cast of the film up until this point, with the sad exception of the nude models – turns up to the airport. The Prince grabs a plane and heads back to Zindana with the incriminating photos, and the president and the rebels rip Tiffany’s clothes off and chase her around the air strip.
Tiffany goes home and goes to bed. The end.
If the above sounds like a series of events that just keep happening at random, then I’ve conveyed the way the movie works pretty authentically. Tiffany takes absolutely everything in her stride and doesn’t really react to anything. Even the fact that she’s successfully brought down an oppressive dictatorship doesn’t have any effect – she literally just goes to bed. It’s all very odd, and a complete mess.
Director Pete Walker was better known for horror films like Die Screaming, Marianne and Frightmare. The scriptwriter, Alfred Shaughnessy, was better known for dreary TV period drama Upstairs, Downstairs. So it’s probably not entirely surprising Tiffany Jones turned out so badly.
The problem really seems to be that Tiffany Jones has absolutely no idea what it is – saucy sex comedy? Spy thriller? Romance? It doesn’t do very well at any of them.
But then, why aim for sex comedy and spy thriller when the comic strip was an uplifting squeaky-clean affair about a girl wearing nice clothes and hanging out with her flatmate and boyfriend? Baffling.
Frankly, Lady Weinberg can bloody keep it. No one’s missing much with this off the market.
Directed by Anna Biller Starring Anna Biller, Bridget Brno, Jared Sanford, Chad England Unrated USA
"I've always wanted to be a prostitute. It sounds so romantic!"
Anna Biller is some sort of magical art-school girl from LA who produces lavish stage musicals and bizarre short films utilizing imagery and fashion from bygone eras. In Viva, she dresses herself and everyone around her up in eye-watering 70's outfits and lets 'em loose in boozy, sex-on-the-patio type situations, just to see what happens. From what I've read, she spent several years shopping at thrift stores and learning macramé to achieve the seamless retro look of Viva, and it shows. Nothing about this film, save for a few too-worn 'vintage' items, suggests it was made two years ago. Therefore, I'm going to pretend it's a lost sexploitation classic from 1972.
As Viva opens, we meet Mark (Biller regular Jared Sanford), the quintessential 70's man. He's boastful, horny, and unattractive. With his lop-sided helmet of hair and yellow slacks, he looks like everyone's pervy uncle. Mark lounges around his pool, chain smoking and fiddling with his new camera. His bosomy blonde wife Sheila (Bridget Brno,Caffeine) comes out to greet him. "Good morning, lover," she purrs. "You call this morning?" He says, nonsensically. And then they both laugh like mental patients. Sheila tosses a few cubes of ice into her glass and Mark splashes in some Dewars. Then she picks up his copy of Playboy. "Coffee and the paper," she says. "The perfect breakfast!" And then they both laugh again.
Viva is the sort of film that you will know instantly whether you like or not. The acting is purposefully wooden, a clear homage to Doris Wishman's ineptitude and John Waters' aggro-camp. There is not one naturalistic performance in the entire film, and if Mark's droll laughter puts you off, things will only get worse from there. I can see why Viva is such a polarizing film, but I was riveted by this scene. As a small child growing up in the 70's, this is the kinda crazy bullshit I suspected was going on, but could not prove and would not understand even if I saw it. You can watch Viva and think Biller is putting you on, but she's really not that far off the mark. This is pretty much exactly the way I remember the 1970's.
Sheila settles down by the pool and leafs through the faded magazine (all the vintage books and magazine in Viva really are vintage, which is a distracting detail. They really should look brand new, shouldn't they?), pointing out that her "bustline" is better than any of the girls in the magazine. Mark agrees. "That's right, honey," he says. "If I can say one thing about you, you've got great tits." They start discussing the possibility of an impromptu nude shoot right there in their backyard, when their friend and neighbor Barbie (Biller) shows up. They ask her why she's visiting. "Sheer boredom," she tells them, in a zombie monotone.
Anna Biller's sultry look in Viva appears to be influenced in equal measure by Tura Satana and Divine, but her performance is very much her own creation. She appears to be constantly posing, as if invisible paparazzi are snapping candids of her. At the same time, her flat affect suggests an over-medicated depressive with very little attachment to her own body. Barbie goes through the motions as required by the situation at hand - posing in her bikini with Sheila as Mark snaps pictures, or running around the grabby boss's desk as he chases her - but she always seems faraway, lost in some modestly-dressed Neverland where she's not constantly being pawed and pursued by men because of her soft, feminine figure.
Of course, her choice of clothing might have something to do with the powerful attraction men have for her. Barbie seriously enjoys sheer nighties. She is dressed in a particularly fetching peach-colored number when her leisure-suit n' toupee sporting hubby Rick (the awesomely named Chad England) comes home from a hard day at the office. She explains to him that she's been fired from her secretary job (she didn't let the boss catch her), and would like to become a model. He laughs and makes sweet 70's love to her on the floor. And then they throw a barbeque complete with deviled eggs and a Jello mold.
Rick leaves town on business, and Barbie decides to pursue this modeling lark. Her first stop is the Gladstone modeling agency, where she meets Miss Marker (Veronica Alicino), who looks her over and decides that, with a new hairdo and a makeover, she might be able to get her some work in "Catalogs and...art movies." Miss Marker sends her to the hairdressers and then suggests the two meet later for a private photo shoot at her house. "It'll probably go late," Miss Marker purrs, "But you can sleep over my house if you want."
Barbie visits Sherman (Barry Morse), a mincing, glam-rock hairdresser with a makeshift salon in his apartment and a belligerent next-door neighbor, Reeves (Cole Chipman), who comes over to watch him "work". The dandified barber doses their milkshakes, and Reeves attempts to seduce the drugged Barbie, but she passes out. So he just fucks the hairdresser instead. Barbie wakes up the next morning and takes off. Rick's had it with her new adventures in self-empowerment and splits, maybe for good.
Mark has also left Sheila, so she calls up Barbie and tells her to put on something sexy. She has a plan to capitalize on their newfound freedom, although she hasn't worked out the kinks yet. They dress up in see-through outfits and head into the city. "Isn't this exciting?" Sheila asks. "Two girls in the big city without husbands!" "Yes," Barbie agrees, but what should we do?" "I don't know," Sheila shrugs. "Let's go stand over there and think about it." And that's exactly what they do. While the two women in their racy outfits stand in a doorway and ponder their next move, Mrs James (Carole Balkan), a madam from the local brothel, spies them from her binoculars She trots over to them and compliments them on their sexy outfits. "We want to have adventure," Sheila explains.
Mrs. James convinces them to try the exotic world of escort services, promising them they don't have to have sex with the men if they don't want to. Their first client is middle-aged doctor with a spanking fetish. They gently swat him and giggle. Afterward, he hands them a pile of cash. Things are going well.
Sheila changes her name to Candy. Then she dreams about purple horses and sings in the bathtub while chugging scotch. Barbie, now calling herself Viva, takes a gig at a nudist colony. Annie McAuley, from classic 80's Canuck teensploitation flicks Recruits and Loose Screws, is lounging in a hot tub when she gets there, and informs her that she'll have to get naked if she plans on sticking around. She refuses, but there's so many naked people already in the frame that it hardly matters. It is also remarkable how 70's people look when they're naked and either sitting in hot tubs or playing acoustic guitars.
By the way, there's an all-nude acoustic folk-rock interlude at this point. How could there not be, really?
Barbie bones the folk singer, Elmer (Paolo Davanzo), but the next morning, she finds herself unsatisfied. "I thought I would hate myself for this," Barbie tells her hippy lover. "But I don't. I hate you."
Mrs James sends her out again, this time to see an edgy pop-art mogul with a British accent named Clyde (Marcus DeAnda). Despite finding him unattractive and off-putting, Viva moves into his space-age bachelor pad. Clyde introduces her to his way-out friends, including a Mr. Furley-esque grandpa named Arthur (John Klemantaski), who asks her to audition for his all-nude musical, and a foxy black chick named Agnes (Robbin Ryan), who she has a romantic fling with. Barbie's new life is going pretty well, until Arthur barges in one day and rapes her. Imagine being raped by Don Knotts?
Meanwhile, Mark has moved into a new, shag-lined luxury condo complete with nude women who show up to borrow liquor. Staring straight at the camera with a bubbly naked redhead (Andrea Lain) on his lap, Mark sums up the 70's: "There has never been a better time to be a man," he says. "The willing women, the dandy clothes, the frills, the big rings and jewelry, the open shirts, the sense of entitlement. Take it from me: savor this time, for it will soon be gone, never to return."
I very nearly wept.
Despite the fact that she's been enjoying his hospitality and wealth, Barbie/Viva has yet to consummate her relationship with Clyde. Frustrated, he visits Mrs. James who, after all, set Barbie up with him the first place. "She wants to be my friend," he scoffs. "Honestly, who wants to be friends with a girl?" Mrs. James gives him a pill that will put Barbie into a "trance state". I'm not sure how that helps, but Ok.
Clyde throws a sex party straight out of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Barbie wears an Egyptian goddess outfit. "Wow, you turn me on," random mustache dude tells her. "Turn you on?" Viva mocks, puffing on her cigarette. "I turn all men on." Viva performs an ear-battering musical number while people fuck on the floor all around her but nearly passes out from Clyde's weird pill. Mark recognizes his old neighbor and rushes to help (the only moment in the entire film, by the way, where a character shows any compassion whatsoever), but Clyde shoos him away, whisking Viva away to his bedroom. She starts hallucinating in cartoons while Clyde ravishes her supple body.
Things are sorta getting out of hand for our drowsy heroine. Will she continue down this dark path of cheap sex and designer drugs, or will she remember who she really is and rush back home to Rick? And where the fuck is Rick, anyway?
These questions and a fistful of others you haven't even thought of yet all get answered in the thrilling and sugar-sweet climax of Viva.
At two-plus hours (in the unrated Cult Epics DVD, at any rate), Viva is a commitment, on many levels. It definitely rides the thin line between eye-rolling performance art and dead-on kitsch, and is probably a tough watch for anyone not accustomed to soul-draining 60's and 70's sexploiters from the bottom of Doris Wishman and Harry Novak's trash barrels. But for freaks like you and I, it's pure z-movie delirium, a dizzy Nyquil cocktail of loony fashions, wall-to-wall nudity, and painful musical interludes. I could watch it everyday. Especially if I had a white shag rug to lounge on, and an endless supply of Dewars and Kents to keep me company.
Boners will most definitely be popped. And they'll be 1972 boners, which are the best kind.
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