The Naked Kiss, 1963 original Half Sheet
The Naked Kiss, 1963
Written and Directed by Simon Fuller
Lured by the skanky title and the promise of a trashy time I hit the play button. Swack! Swack! Swack! A pocketbook is swinging like a propeller blade. Behind it a black bra-clad bald hooker appears, hell bent on kicking the s**t out of a drunken pimp. I’m hooked.
The Naked Kiss, a pulpy title with a creepy connotation, is a divine send-up of female melodrama and saint/sinner cliques. The hooker with a heart of gold. The Sleezy cop. A perfect, yet hypocritical small town. Only a master could spin a tale this wacky and not let the plates crash. Only a master could teeter between Cheeze and Arteeze. Bravo Simon Fuller.
Pretty Poison, 1968
Pretty Poison,1968, Orignal Window Card
Directed by Noel Black
Novel by Stephen Geller
Pretty Poison is a little pop of Dark Comedy in the vein of Sweeney Todd. The hip young murderettes are just missing a groovey 5th Dimension whack track to enliven their bloody binge.
Like all dark comedies, Pretty Poison was a box office bust. Young, sexy couple killers were not yet in vogue—Beatty was just getting ready shoot Bonnie and Clyde. Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen were years out from running in Badlands.
***True Story***Tuesday Weld was Warren Beatty’s numero uno choice for Bonnie Parker. But, she turned it down. Ostensibly, because she “knew it was going to be a hit”.
Pretty Poison was the most successful film of Noel Black’s career, which goes to show you how much of its success he owed to the actors and script on this film. The chemistry between the lead actors was so buzzy that they were repaired again in another rarely viewed, but ravey cult classic, Joan Didion’s Play It As it Lays.
Marnie, Vintage Original Half Sheet
Ready, Set, Blow! August 12th is Alfred Hitchcock’s 112th birthday. For his birthday, we are going to celebrate by chatting up Hitch’s most reviled film, Marnie.
Hitchcock promoted Marnie as a “sex mystery”. The movie trailor is a hoot. Hitchcock reinvented Winston Graham’s novel of childhood trauma, kleptomania and sexual repression into a Where’s Waldo of visual puns and Freudian associations. Like Nabokov’s Lolita, it’s alternately mysterious, romantic or twisted, and not nearly as funny if you don’t get the jokes.
Soylent Green, Paperback
Vintage Paperback
For those of you of a certain age, Charlton Heston was the uber anti-hero of the 1970′s. You could always count on the scantily clad Heston kept the world safe from creepy apes, natural disasters, and various plane and submarine malfunctions. Prior to this, of course, Heston served as a model/actor for largely inaccurate religious soap docudramas in the 50′s and early 60′s.
Some hail the Ten Commandments as Heston’s career pinnacle; still others, Ben Hur or the Planet of the Apes series. But, for me Soylent Green wins out on sheer sophistication, cheap creeps, and eerie prophetic moments.
Edward G. Robinson the old scamp, actually manipulated Heston into a good performance in this film. Soylent Green was to be Robinson’s 109th and final film and he knew it. The movies were his life and there was no way he was going to let ANYTHING screw up his denouement. Fittingly, Robinson’s last big scene was a deathbed scene in which he reminisces about the way the world used to be and what was to become of it in the future. Prior to filming, Robinson shared with his old Ten Commandments comrade that he was dying of cancer. When the scene was filmed Heston could barely contain his shaking sobs. Viola! Movie magic at it’s best.
Read this book, watch the movie (if you can find it) and see why this is still considered after 30 years a sci fi great — and not for the kiddies.
Condition: Good. Light tanning. Reading copy.
Dead Ringer, Half Sheet
Dead Ringer is one of those rare cinematic pleasures, A movie that can be relished on so many levels that the category Noir Horror can barely contain its glory.
Twin Movie. Naturally this isn’t Bette’s first twin movie (who cares about the first one). And, to make it even better, both twins are “Eeeevil”.
Campy juxapositions: One twin lives in Greystone Mansion in Los Angeles while the other operates a trashy gin joint. One twin wears cocktail dresses all day long dripping with jewels vs. one in cleaning lady attire and a bozo wig.
Peter Lawford stretches himself as sleazy Playboy.
Best Supporting performance by a Cigarette: Notice how Bette needs no words to get her point across. Only a cigarette. It huffs! It puffs!! It suffers a violent end in an ashtray or under a high heeled foot! And, Paul Henried is there behind the scenes directing the cigarettes performance — how trashtastic is that!
Drink to Favorite Bette Manorism. Eye Pops. Eye Rolls. Eye pop and roll. Arm Flails. Words beginning in “E” heeved with an exquisite flourish: “Eeeedith, . . .Eeeeevil” On second thought this could get sloppy.
Fine. Colors are nice and bright. No tears. Half sheet has been folded, but there is no paper loss. Poster has been stored flat. There are a few pin holes. Upper right corner (about 1/8″) has a fold mark.
