Last week, it was miniature wargaming, a valid historical enthusiasm, this week, it is old movies, another valid historical enthusiasm. Yeah, the blog jumps around a lot but it's always something somehow related to history. (Hint -follow the labels and find what you want -remember the old stuff is just as good, sometimes better, than the new stuff(
Tonight we discuss Roger Corman's classic film, "The Wild Angels," from 1966. If you have any interest at all in the biker film genre, then you know this is the one which started it all. Roger Corman, known to many as "king of the B-movies," had read an article in Life magazine about the Hell's Angels and decided they warranted a movie.
And the result was The Wild Angels, which like most of the genre had delightfully over the top, sensationalized trailers --trailers which are often more fun to watch then the films themselves.
The film starred Peter Fonda, later the star of "Easy Rider," as "Blues" or "Heavenly Blues," the leader of a fictitious California Hell's Angel chapter. Nancy Sinatra, a singer in her own right yet known forever as Frank Sinatra's daughter, plays his girlfriend.
Supporting roles are played by, among others, Bruce Dern, who went on to do countless biker films, and Diane Ladd, as well as Michael J. Pollard, the actor who made a guest appearance Star Trek (how it is that anyone anywhere who did a guest role on the original Star Trek shall now be immortalized.)
As one watches the film now, it's interesting to ponder why and how it, and this is a documented fact, The Wild Angels film launched a genre of films that stretched over a decade or more and included at least twenty films although I've heard forty as the number, as well.
Not only did it launch a film genre, but it also fueld the growth of the real life Hell's Angels motorcycle group (notice how I avoided saying either "club" or "gang"?), an organization that now spans several continents with chapters around the world. You can read about this in the book, "The Wild Ride -How the Outlaw Motorcycle Myth Conquered America," by Tom Reynolds, 2000. TV Books, New York. In other words, in 1965, when this film came out, while the Hell's Angels had gained publicity in the form of magazine articles and so on as well as Hunter Thompson's classic book, they were no where near as important as they became later, and did not, for instance, have chapters in Europe, South Africa, South America, and Australia among other places. These all came later, and came, in part, due to the popularity of films like this one and those that followed it.
So, what was the appeal of this film? The cinematography is well done, the acting not awful, at least by biker film standards, but not great either. It is kind of a corny film full of corny lines.
What it shows is a group of people on a quest, the quest being to transport the body of a dead Angel and then give it a proper funeral.
It's got a lot of the common trops and scenes and such that one sees again and again in biker films. Wild dance parties on beaches with bongo drums, sunsets, bikers on lonely roads, rape and attempted rape scenes (yes, there are many of them in this film and even more in later films in this genre. They are, for better or worse, endemic to the genre.)
And it's got the classic scene where a pastor in a church asks
the Angels, more or less, if you want to be free, what is that you want to be free to do anyway?
"We want to be free, free to get loaded and ride our machines."
Obviously this struck a chord with some people. Simon Pegg references it frequently in his 2013 film, The Word's End.
There is a sense of the characters being part of a group that lives outside the laws of normal society, something that definitely appeals to many in an escapist film. But even then at the end of the film "Heavenly Blues" just decides this whole thing has gone too far.
There's a lot of minor controversies surrounding the film. One of them is whether or not actual Hell's Angels participated in the making of the film. Roger Corman often spoke of how they were hired as extras and brought their bikes and girlfriends, charging for their appearance in the film and billing more for the appearances of the motorcycles than the women. He also wrote of how they were unreliable workers and this posed challenges filming ( see "How I made a hundred movies in Hollywood and never lost a dime," by Roger Corman) Sonny Barger, the head of the Hell's Angels, however insists that no Angels appeared in the film. Personally I don't consider either to be reliable witnesses so I guess we'll never know.
“Outlaw Riders –They Take Whatever They Want –Whenever They Want.” And a bit on biker films and trash cinema in general.
When it comes to trash cinema, few can deny that there’s any trash quite as trashy among all the trash that is known as trash cinema as biker films. Yes, biker films! The pentultimate, quintessential trash cinema. This short lived, little respected genre flourished for about ten years starting in 1966 with Roger Corman’s “The Wild Angels” and lasting for about ten or so years until slowly fading out.
As a collector of such films, recently it struck me that it’s long past time that I did some writing on them. With that thought, I recently wrote of The Wild One, a film that preceded the biker film fad. The next logical film would have been The Wild Angels, the one that started the fad, but, alas, I got side tracked and decided to instead of rewatching that classic, to check out a film, I had never seen before but recently purchased, Outlaw Riders. (note the absence of a “The.” No direct object on this film, it seems.)
First, some ground rules. While I hate trigger
warnings and spoilers, for several reasons I’ve decided to include the dreaded
trigger warnings and will let readers know if a film I write about contains
rape, attempted rape, or torture scenes. If nothing else, such warnings help
people choose the right mixture from among their films and their friends who
they invite to choose friends. Sounds wimpy, I know, but I recently had a
friend, a good friend, a female friend, complain in a completely serious
fashion about being unable to unsee some of the scenes I’d exposed her to in
some of the films I enjoy, and she meant it, and I like having her over for films
and such so . . . the result is you, the reader, now get trigger warnings for
rape, attempted rape, and torture scenes. Do with that knowledge what you wish.
Second, while it’s generally a horrible sin among
movie reviewers to give away the ending of a film, well, let’s be honest, we’re
talking about biker films here. A genre where the typical plot is often two
groups of scumbags chase each other around for an hour and half on screen,
stopping periodically to break things, fight each other, and rape people in a
usually pointless fashion, and, then, about the time the audience begins to
wonder when it’s going to just plain end and if they should get up and get some
popcorn or go to the restroom, well, everyone dies for no good reason. And,
once in a while, it may be dramatic and cathartic and so on, but, just as often
if not more so, the result is it leaves you sitting there, thinking “Huh? I
just wasted an hour and a half on this thing and THAT was the best ending they
could think of?” So with that in mind, some reviews will include the line.
“SPOILERS –TYPICAL SUCKY BIKER FILM ENDING.” Which
does not necessarily mean that everyone dies at the end, but it might. So make
of that what you will. Whatever it means, it means I thought the ending was
disappointing. Like they filmed, and filmed, and then realized that they had
put together about an hour and a half of story and the food, drugs, and beer
were gone and just basically slapped together an ending and, well, that was the
end they came up with on the day they decided to finish the story and finish
filming. “TYPICAL SUCKY BIKER FILM ENDING.” Remember that.
Which brings us to “Outlaw Riders” (no “The”)
“Outlaw Riders” starts out surprising well, with a
nice, upbeat song and some really cool cascading still shots over some pretty
good music. (More on the music later.) But we’re not too far into the song when
we realize this film is likely to disappoint. For one thing, the copy of the
film used by Peter Rodgers Organization, the company that released this video,
is clearly not the best. Aside from the occasional scratch here and there, one quickly
notices that credits don’t fit the screen. They spread off the edge, and, yes,
I did try adjusting the image very possible way. The ends of the credits just
aren’t there. Somewhere I read that this was not the fault of the company that
released the DVD. This was merely the only copy they could get their hands on.
Apparently there just aren’t that many copies of Outlaw Riders floating around
waiting to be rereleased. Apparently no one thought it was terribly worth
saving. Color quality, editing, and general level of camera skill and cinematography
just aren’t there, it seems. (Gosh, it’s things like this that really make you
appreciate Russ Meyer’s camera skills.)
Poor camera skills --even I know that when you are filming a woman
dancing on a table, for goodness shakes, show her entire legs and her feet.
The whole scene was filmed without ever once showing her feet or ankles
No extras of any kind. No trailers, no special features,
no commentary tracks, no subtitles, no foreign language sound tracks. Hey, those
things cost money, you know.
Bike scenes. Really not that impress. The
eponymous “Outlaw Riders” are a gang of about six guys and two women with half
a dozen bikes between them. No fancy riding scenes here. No amazing, awe
inspiring mass bike scenes as in some other films in the genre. (The Australian
film “Stone” comes to mine.) The film starts out with the gang committing a
robbery and then spending the rest of the film travelling around Arizona and
Mexico trying to figure out how best to avoid the authorities and fighting
among themselves. Rape, attempted rape, and getting back at men by hurting
their women is part of the plot, so be careful who you watch this one with,
and, yes, that is true of a lot of biker films now, isn’t it? Which is exactly
why I mention it here, so ‘nuff said on that point.
What else goes on here? Without too much in the way
of spoilers, the best parts probably include:
a)The scene where the sheriff and his deputies show up.
Okay, this part isn’t that great but you’ve got to see the “sheriff’s car” to understand
just how low budget this film is.
Lest there be any doubt, note the sign that says "sheriff" taped on the door of the car.
That explains why the men inside have guns and try to stop the robbery. I mean, just in case you wondered.
b)The scene where the guy brings a hurt biker
to the convent where the nun’s can provide medical care and a biker guy and two
biker chicks discuss the needs who help injured strangers.
“Weird people.” (says
the biker guy.)
“Yeah, but they’re on
our side.” (says biker chick #1)
“They’re on everyone’s
side. Like that’s their thing.” (says biker chick #2)
Nuns can be groovy, man.
c)The scenes where they meet the Mexican
biker gang. One can tell they are Mexicans, by the way, because they speak with
Mexican accents, wear serapes, and have tan skin. The Mexican biker chicks wear
nice looking floral skirts and dance on tables. (in a very poorly shot scene).
They yell Mexican things like “Hijo de una chingada!” and “I smell a gringo!”
The American bikers,
in turn, after assessing the situation with “What’s with these dudes, man?” respond
with clever retorts like “Screw you, you greasy taco vendor!”
Can there be any doubt in anyone's mind that these are, in fact, Mexicans?
Hmmm, can I really be
accused of giving away important plot points by hinting that the plot might
involve conflict and friction and ill will between these two groups? Things go
on, events unroll, ultimately one gets A TYPICAL, SUCKY, BIKER FILM ENDING . .
. Yawn.
It
turns out the story of biker film soundtracks is very interesting, and I hope
to explore it more. That’s the way things are sometimes. You dig into something,
scratch the surface, and soon you find something completely unexpected, an
avenue for further research. I stumbled across this link to an interesting article on the subject. https://www.peterstanfield.com/discographies
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Finally, my books . . .
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Russ Meyer
is legend among exploitation film followers. Frantic, unrestrained plots, odd
humor, those amazing wild, out-of control women with their inescapably huge
breasts, and despite the generally puerile tone of the films, surprisingly good
technical skill with the camera work and editing. And with titles
like “Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill!” and the amazing posters and trailers, it
was inevitable that I’d seek them out at some point.
As I write, I’ve
seen around a dozen of Meyer’s films, starting with the bigger, better known titles,
then working through his lesser known creations as I find copies. I’m also working
through an illuminating, well-researched biography called “Big Bosoms and
Square Jaws –The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film.” (Written by
Jimmy McDonough, copyright 2005, Three Rivers Press, New York)
And the more
I see, the more I read, the more I find myself wondering “Is Russ Meyer gay?”
Strange
question, some will say. Laughable, others will argue.And everyone knows that one of the marks of
the classic intellectual lightweight, pseudo-intellectual is that he or she
pulls names of well-known historical figures almost at random and asks
completely hypothetical questions to support absurd allegations of repressed
homosexuality and an alternate sexual orientation. But I can’t shake it. The more I see, the more
I read, the more sense it makes.
For those
who don’t know, Russ Meyer was, among other things, a former Playboy
photographer who is known in film making for creating “The Immoral Mister
Teas,” widely known as the first film that used graphic nudity with no pretense
at being educational, in other words naked women being shown mostly to
entertain an audience that liked to see naked women, a very, very shocking idea
in 1959 when released. When the era of the X-rated movie came along, an
era better known for films like “Midnight Cowboy” (1969) and “Clockwork Orange”
(1971), both seen as important, ground-breaking, cutting edge art films that
stretched boundaries of discussion by using an X rating, few remember that it
was Russ Meyer’s film “Vixen” (1968) that paved the way. “Vixen” was the first
commercially released X-rated film. His 1964 film “Lorna,” a drama, also paved
the way for the use of nudity and portrayal of sexuality and nude women in
films. (“Lorna” did not have an X-rating as it was released years before the
letter system for grading films was created. My guess is that if it had been
released a few years later, it probably would have had an X-rating but today it
would probably get an R, and that as much for the violence in the film as much
as for the nudity. I hope to write a bit more on “Lorna” at some point.)
If one picks
up a good book on the history of pornography, you will find Meyer’s name in
there a few times, usually for breaking ground and paving the way for people
who came later. (I’ve included links to a couple interesting and entertaining
such works below. Remember if you buy them through these links, you are
supporting this blog.)
Not to
mention that the man obviously has a thing for women with large, very large,
very, very large breasts, the bigger the better. [1]
So, how in
the world could one wonder if such a man is gay?
Well, for
one thing, if you watch his films, while they simple ooze with unrestrained
heterosexuality, after a while (and I’ve seen about a dozen of his films) you
can’t help wondering if he’s just plain trying too hard to demonstrate and
display his heterosexuality.
Second,
after a while, it’s pretty obvious that he’s not very comfortable around women.
The female characters in his films are often down-right frightening, the sorts
of women who, through one means or another, would destroy a man’s life and then
laugh about it as they survey the damage. Furthermore, throughout his films,
these women when they are not victimizing someone else are inevitably being
victimized themselves, and in a Russ Meyer film, both events happen with an unrestrained
graphic brutality of a sort rarely seen on film, before or since. And worse,
more than once when women in his films get raped or sexually assaulted,
nearby men often cheer the assault on as if this is a natural and normal
reaction. In fact, if you catch the sexual assault in the bar scene in “Up!”,
you can spot Russ Meyer himself in the crowd cheering just as loudly as anyone
there. (Of course, such things do happen in real life. On the other hand, I
maintain they are an anomaly and a more normal male reaction would be shock and
horror, leading ideally to finding a way to assist and intervene.)
Third, his
men, the good men, not the villains, rarely seem to actually enjoy sex or have
good relations with the stunningly built women around them. Often they are not
able to sexually satisfy the women in their lives, and because of this the
women abandon or hurt them.
Fourth,
while depictions of actual homosexuality in his films are rare, the only one I
can think of having encountered in his films occurs in the film “Up!” (1976)
and the reactions of the female character is significant. “Up!” is a very
strange film and begins with a geriatric Adolf Hitler living under an assumed
name in a castle in the deep woods of the west coast USA. Geriatric Hitler with
the assumed name is holding an orgy in his castle. The orgy features several
women off different races and one man all being paid by Hitler to sexually
humiliate him. The man engages in at least two homosexual sex acts with the
geriatric and decrepit Hitler. While depicted quite graphically by the standards
of the day, the acts would be considered implied by today’s standards (no male
genitalia is portrayed for instance). Nevertheless, there can be zero doubt in
the audience as to what is happening and what the man is doing to Hitler and
what Hitler is begging to have done to him. Finally, the orgy ends and
geriatric Hitler with the assumed name pays the man and sends him on his way. Which
is all quite strange, graphic, and weird (and if one complains that I did not
give “spoilers” all this occurs in the first five or ten minutes of the film
BEFORE we have any plot or context for it, so, in my opinion, at least, it not
exactly spoiling the film in any way to reveal this. I mean you turn on the
film and this is what you see, suddenly and without warning. Surprise!). Now
what’s truly significant for this argument is (and NOW we have some SPOILERS)
the man’s wife’s reaction to all this. (SPOILERS)
The wife
becomes jealous. She fears that these paid sexual acts that the husband commits
with geriatric Hitler living under an assumed name could cause her husband to
leave her.
Let me
explain that again. And, again, SPOILERS, a wife learns that her husband
is engaging in gay sex for pay with perhaps the most evil man of all time
(particularly in the eyes of Russ Meyer, world war two veteran) and she fears
that he might end the marriage and leave her for Hitler. Ummm, okay. Ummm, no,
I’ve thought it over a second time. It’s not okay. In fact, it’s just plain
downright weird. Weird as in clinically significant weird. Sex with a wrinkled,
ugly, and absolutely despicable man might be more appealing to him, she fears,
than sex with her, despite, of course, that she is an extremely attractive woman
in the classic Russ Meyer mold.
Reading the
biography, there’s more hints. His relations with women usually were unstable
and involved women who were more than anything else a trophy to impress his
male friends. The way he seemed most interested in them was through the lens of
a camera. His arguably most stable and intimate relationship was with his
second wife, Eve, who, once described him as a “photosexual.” (p. 78) Page
after page of the biography, describes how he would usually only become aroused
with a woman after an hour or more of photographing them.
According to
the biography, Eve probably had affairs with other women and once accused Russ
of having a romantic or sexual relationship with one of his army buddies and
business partners. (p. 142) In the end, in his autobiography, Meyer
included a multi-page photo spread of eve and at the end summed up his feelings
for her with “And did I love her? Hell, yes! Maybe, I think so.” (p.147)Obviously, not the clearest statement of his
feelings for the person most consider the love of his life.
Now,
let me get this clear. I’m straight. Because of this I sometimes miss things involving
homosexuality. I asked a friend, a gay friend. “Are the men good looking? That’s
the key thing you need to watch for," he advised. "If he’s gay, but doesn’t know it, the men
in his movies will be really good looking.” Well, next Russ Meyer film, I
watched was “Lorna,” a tale of a beautiful and large breasted, not very nice
woman, who cheats on her really good looking husband with a really good looking
fugitive. ‘Nuff said. The question remains.
1.Obviously, he judges the
attractiveness of women by the size of their breasts, the bigger the better. If
look at another way, perhaps he needs an easily measured metric to determine
which women are attractive and which are not.
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For some
reason, Russ Meyer films are difficult to find and there seems to be confusion about who owns what or something is going on. Regardless, aside from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, whose rights are owned by a major studio, the others are not easily found and seem to become commercially available in a haphazard fashion. Therefore I just offer what's available and am not able to comment much on actual editions.
This is the biography I have been reading. It's very well done.
Two good books on the history of pornography
Finally, my books . . .
Yeah, I've written books. Please check them out and see if they interest you.
[Quick update on this blog: I write this soon after the peak of the widespread BLM protests and marches. The Covid-19 pandemic is still raging. While the curve is down, way down, here in New York State, in the nation the number of infections seems to be on the rise again, particularly in the states that most support President Trump, a man who managed to politicize and work against taking basic precautions against the virus. See https://ourworldindata.org/ or https://91-divoc.com/ While on one hand, I think history is going to condemn Mister Trump in so many ways, I also can't help thinking about our current era and our current president is sure to be a subject of much study and discussion among historians, for, probably, centuries. So many things to think about, dig into, and try to understand there. I have done some small amount of writing on him, but on a different blog. Also, if plagues and pandemics interest you, you might consider seeking out my piece on Smallpox in China on this blog. As for the BLM movement, I'd like to recommend a couple interesting pieces by Jason Colavito that touch on the current controversies. First, we have a very interesting piece on Columbus and the historiography surrounding him and his niche in the history of Italian-Americans, a once surprisingly persecuted people. See: The Two Faces of Columbus: How a Genocidal Tyrant Became an Anti-Discrimination Icon for Italian-Americans , He also wrote this interesting piece: A+E Networks Cancels "Live PD" on A&E after Protests but Leaves Racist History Channel Shows on the Air . Jason Colavito, as I also wrote here once, writes extensively on false ideas in early human history, particulary the slew of ancient astronaut shows. When I started this blog, I'd intended to do more writing on those things, particularly as these ideas are so widespread in some circles these days, but Mr Colavito seems to have already done a fine, fine job on most of the truly interesting subjects so why reinvent the wheel, as they say? As for this blog, while I'd hoped to add something weekly, I'm beginning to think that biweekly is a more realistic, achievable schedule that will allow me time to do other interesting things as well. And now for some movie history . . .]
Oh my. Sometimes you have to do things just because you have to do them. Life is full of such events. Unimportant, useless acts, intentionally devoid of mean, yet somehow punctuated by things of importance, things with meaning. But sometimes, yes, sometimes, things happen and things are done for no reason at all.
And thus it was, a while back, I found myself watching an awesome documentary called "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films." A wonderful experience, it tells the story of two Israeli cousins, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, film makers in their native land, who came to America, purchased a company named Cannon Films, and proceeded without pause to make film after film after bad after atrocious after bizarre but often truly great, wonderful, unimaginable fun films. And wild and unforgettable and great fun they often were. It's a wondeful documentary, I recommend it without hesitation, and even included a link to purchase it below.
Alas!! Like all good things, their partnership came to an end with much fighting, feuding, squabbling, and even animosity. And when it did, in 1990, each cousin claimed ownership of the company's then "big" project in the making, the concept being a film based on a dance that was big in Brazil, a dance called the LAMBADA.
The rivalry became manifest in a race between the two cousins to produce a film based on the Lambada and release it before their cousin released his, thereby beating him to the market and getting the bulk of all that wild money that was allegedly waiting because the one thing they agreed on was that the world not just needed a film based on the Lambada, but that the person who released such a film first was going to be rewarded handsomely and be showered with lots and lots of money.
Neither felt that such a film need be good, just that it be made quickly, faster than its competitor, and, thus, off they went, racing, cutting corners, shortening rehearsals, tightening shooting schedules, each determined to be the first to release the world's first American Lambada film.
In the end, believe it or not, the race ended in a tie and the two films were released on the same day, competing with each other, an event that frustrated both cousins, yet was easily ignored by the rest of the world. Alas! It seems the bulk of the American people had little interest in a film based on the Lambada, a 1990 dance craze from Brazil, a nation known for, among many other things, short lived dance crazes that came and went each year.
And thus it was . . . the two competing Lambada dance films.
I'm going to start with a quick discussion of the film "Lambada -the Forbidden Dance," also released under the title "The Forbidden Dance." To my mind, undoubtedly the superior product, at least I enjoyed it more than the other meaning I laughed a lot instead of cringing uncomfortably as I did with the other.
Spoiles with both films, but, honestly, they're both pretty formulaic anyway so I don't really feel like I'm releasing any big secrets here.
“Lambada –The Forbidden Dance” (originally released under the title “The Forbidden Dance”) is, in my humble opinion, clearly the superior of the two films, although few would claim that’s saying much. And, in fairness to the second film, it had a big advantage as unlike its competitor, the creators had the rights to use the actual Lambada song, thus allowing for this film, unlike its competitor, to actually contain Lambada dance scenes. (Yes, someone once made a movie called “Lambada” about a dance and a song called the Lambada that did not contain a single scene of people dancing the Lambada dance to the Lambada song and then released it globally hoping it would become a smash hit. If nothing else, that piece of trivia probably makes it worth having read, at least, this far.)
However, that does not necessarily mean that it’s a good film. It’s not a good film. But it is a fun film and well worth a group gathering to watch a turkey film. and, in that context, I highly recommend it.
Basic plot is that Laura Harring, known as the first ever Mexican-American Miss America and star of David Lynch’s film “Mulholland Drive,” plays an Indian princess who leaves Brazil and heads to the USA to save the rain forest. Accompanied by a shaman of her tribe and followed by an agent of the evil corporation that wishes to exploit and destroy the rain forest and its resources, and thus wants to interfere with her mission, she finds herself in Los Angeles where she takes work as a maid, a Spanish speaking maid, no less, which is kind of interesting as the bulk of the rain forest is in Brazil, a Portuguese speaking country. But nevertheless she arrives in Los Angeles, kind of sort of a Spanish speaking place itself, and get a job as a maid.
The evil agent of the rainforest destroying corporation is played by Richard Lynch. Now, I have no idea what Richard Lynch is like in real life, he could be a sweetheart, but on screen, he is very good at acting evil. Not only was he the Russian terrorist leader in the Chuck Norris film “Invasion USA” (dumb film) but he played a very interesting character named John Kirin on an episode called “Blind Faith.” Less said about this, the better save that Highlander was a very good series once it found its voice around season three or so, and this was a particularly good episode. Watch it.
Her employers are a very, very rich family. (There is always a very, very rich family in these movies. So rich that no matter how wealthy might the family of an audience member might be, they are 99% of the time richer than anyone in the audience possible could be. Curiously this, plus the Lambada dance idea, is one thing both films have in common. Pretty white children who dance from outrageously wealth families.)
They have a son, played by Jeff James. This was, apparently, his only film and I have been unable to learn anything about him. (If you learn anything about him, please share in the comments section.)
He likes to dance. Hmmmm . . . I bet you can guess where this all leads at this point. Well, you are probably correct.
Remember the scenes in Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo where the Lucinda Dickey character's ultra-wealthy parents beg, urge, and plead with her to stop dancing with poor people? Of course, you do. I mean, without them those films would have no social message whatsoever. Well, they're more or less repeated here only the rich child is a son and the economically disadvantaged dance partner dances the lambada instead of break dancing. (Like, I said, part of this film's backstory is that the Cannon film partners hoped to repeat the financial success of those earlier dance films, only with this dance film instead of cashing in on already established major dance fad they were hoping to build a minor dance fad into a major one at the same time.
Skipping ahead through several scenes, They dance, dance, and he stands up to racist friends who call her hurtful names like "beaner" and tell him that dancing with "beaners" and the maid is not cool, nevertheless, he continues to dance with the maid, because, well, all dancers are equal, and it doesn't hurt anything that she is knock-dead, absolutely gorgeous and if it would help me meet women who look like that, well, I'd take up dancing lessons too. Ultimately they get a chance to enter a dance contest together, which, as everyone knows is an important step in gaining the publicity required to save the Amazonian rain forest.
Not only that but the dance contest is hosted by none other than the vastly under-rated musician Kid Creole (AKA August Darnell) of Kid Creole and the Coconuts (look them up if you don't know he is. You'll be glad you did. Kid Creole is one of my all time favorite performers) The Lambada is danced spectacularly and . . . well . . . I don't want to give away the ending, but right before the credits role words spread across the screen explaining "This film is dedicated to the Brazilian Rain Forest."
Wonderful film. Wonderful, wonderful film indeed. Wonderful. Truly Wonderful. Go watch it.
Which brings us to its competitor, merely named "Lambada." Some say this is the better of the two. However, those people are wrong, just wrong, just plain wrong. For one thing, the makers of this film, lacked the rights to use the lambada song so this one, unlike the other that had those rights, does not have any actual lambada dance scenes in it.
The film starts in an upscale, wealthy high school in Beverly Hills. Now when I say "upper class, wealthy" put that in this context. One comment some have made about American culture and society is that Americans like to think of themselves as middle class. Middle class covers a wide range of incomes. Many people who could consider themselves as "poor" or "wealthy" in other societies, in the USA tend to think of themselves as "middle class." However, there is absolutely no way anyone anywhere could possibly think of these high school kids as "middle class." They drive fancy cars, wear expensive clothes, their teachers wear suits, and the school administrators speak with snooty accents and clear their threat and say "Ahum" a lot before looking down their nose to speak to people.
We have a very sexy high school student who is played by 23 year old actress Melora Hardin (who later became known as "Linda" in "The Office." I never really watched "The Office," by the way, because when it was at its peak of popularity, I'd never worked in an office setting really and couldn't relate to most of what was happening in it. She also played Mr Monk's late wife in flashback scenes a few times in the series Monk ) While she's sexy, I didn't find her attractive. For one thing, she is, after all, supposed to be a high school student. Also, and, fortunately for her, while history has proven me wrong, she looked like one of those women who just isn't going to age well. I was, and, yes, my frame of reference can quickly get esoteric, reminded me of one of those women (or men) in a Yukio Mishima novel, who while stunningly beautiful, their beauty leads to unrequited desire and great pain for everyone around them, but who in the end either fade and decay into ugliness unless blessed with a quick and spectacular death while at their peak of beauty, so they are remembered as beautiful by those around them, with no decay or loss of purity to taint their memory. Perhaps one of these days, I'll write a column on Yukio Mishima. Who knows?
Anyway, she gets a handsome new math teacher played by 32 year old actor J. Eddie Peck. He went on to do daytime soap opera work mostly. Despite a 9 year age gap between the actors, the truth is they look to be about the same age. Nevertheless, it is kind of icky and distasteful to see her lusting after the teacher. We're not talking harmless fantasy, school girl crush kind of thing here. We're talking full-on sexy teenager who looks about 23 (see above) starts pursuing the teacher with intent to seduce him and lure him into bed and jump his bones, one evening of hot and heavy desire ending in the destruction of the poor sap's teaching career. Yikes!
She talks about this a bit but isn't sure how exactly to find the teacher and spend time with him and make her move. What exactly is the best way for a high school student to find her math teacher, get him alone, and make the moves on him, so she can jump his bones and lure him into bed? Yes, this is the sort of important social questions that this film grapples with. Hmm, how can it compare to the other one? It's not like she's trying to save the Amazon rain forest or anything like that at all, now is it?
Well, fate seems to solve this for her when her friends take her to an underground East LA Dance Club and guess who she encounters inside? Her math teacher, Mr Laird, only he's wearing a leather jacket instead of a suit and tie, has set aside his little round math teacher glasses, and instead is dressed in a leather jacket and jeans and using the name "Blade." She throws herself at him, grabbing his hips, and trying to get him to dance the lambada, but he pushes her away, telling her he does not dance with students and her behavior is inappropriate and must stop.
For several scenes she pursues him, throwing herself at him, dressed in her sexiest, low-cut clothes. Speaking as someone who took a stab at teaching, this is a high school teacher's biggest nightmare actually. On top of that, we know, from previous scenes, that he's married and has a child, no less.
But why, oh why, is he spending all this time in the dance club if he's such a stand-up, good guy?
We learn the answer about halfway through the movie. He has, of course, been going there to tutor the economically disadvantaged Mexicans who hang out at the club for their GEDs.
[BTW, this film really does seem to include a lot of unconscious ugly racism against Mexicans. For instance, how did the Mexican math teacher get a chance to go to college and become a teacher? Well, his Mexican parents died and he was adopted by a White family. And who's the bouncer at the Mexican East LA dance club? Dennis Burkly, who is perhaps best known for one of the thugs in the awesome film "Road House." He's the one who's so big, stupid, and rural Red Neck seeming that you just can't really get angry with him even if he is one of the bad guys in that film. You might remember him for his awesome line in "Road House" "A bear done fell on me." (He's claiming he saw nothing at the end because a taxidermied bear fell on him and pinned him to the floor during a fight scene.) In this film, he plays a bounce named "Uncle Big," a white red neck bouncer at the underground Mexican dance club. Ummmm, okay. Sounds like an ethnic joke waiting to happen. "Q: Why did the Mexican dance club hire a redneck bouncer?" A: "To get to the other side." (Please, if you have a better punchline, share it in the comments.) We also get to see dancer Adolfo Quinones (AKA "Shabadoo") try to handle a role where he must act, and not dance, and learn why he did not go too far in the acting business.]
And finally, how does one end a film about the Lambada dance if you don't have the rights to use the lambada song or dance? Perhaps with a different song and grand dance extravaganza? While this sounds good to me, not here. Perhaps the writers felt this would call attention to the absence of the lambada song. So how did they end the film? Why with a big, thrilling, math contest, of course. And, no, I am not making this up.
So . . . you now know the story of the dueling lambada films. Isn't history fun?
But, wait! There's more. As if all this weren't weird enough, it turns out that the lambada song itself, the big 1990 dance craze and song from Brazil, was not even created in 1990 and was not created in Brazil either. It turns out the song actually originated in Bolivia in 1981, being sung by a group named Las Kjarkas, and was plagiarized by a Brazilian who passed it off as his own creation until eventually sued. Proof lies below.
And don't forget, I was first put on the trail of exploring all this by the following documentary. If you've enjoyed reading about this, you should enjoy it.
RANDOM WEIRDNESS
As stated the Lambada was an international dance craze. Therefore we offer it sung in Cambodian. I actually do have a page on this blog discussing the history of Cambodian pop music.
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