"Using unknowns you avoid highly exaggerated salaries and prima donnas."
In case you didn't already know: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Russ Meyer's baroque 1967 masterpiece, one of only two movies he ever made for a major Hollywood studio (in this case, Fox), is without a doubt one of the Babest movies ever made. While we have yet to review it here at a wasted life (if we did, we would foam at the mouth in raging rave), we have looked at it before, many times, beginning back in 2011, in our R.I.P. Career Review of Charles Napier (12 Apr 1936 – 5 Oct 2011), and again in 2013 in our R.I.P. Career Review for the Great Haji (24 Jan 1946 – 10 Aug 2013) — both appear in the film. (Since then, again in virtually every BVD-babe blog entry listed below.)
"This is not a sequel. There has never been anything like it!"
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"Any movie that Jacqueline Susann thinks would damage her reputation as a writer cannot be all bad."
Russ Meyer films are always populated by amazing breasts sights, but the cups of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls literally overflow in an excess of pulchritude that (even if somewhat more demurely covered than in most of his films) lights the fires of any person attracted to women of the curvaceous kind that preceded today's sculptured plasticity. The film is simply Babe Galore.
And so we continue our look at the flesh film careers of the breasts women of the Babest Film of All Times, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. The size of the women's breasts roles is of lesser importance than the simple fact that the love pillows women are known to be in the film somewhere, and to date we have taken a more or less monthly look at the cleavage known unknowns and mildly knowns in the background and the headlining semi-knowns in the front for over a year's worth of blog entries — with more breasts babes to come. Our entries focus on their nipples careers in film, if in a meandering manner, and we have slightly more than another half-year to go before we're finished drooling with the project.*
* One set of love pillows Babe we don't look is she who is an American National Treasure: the Great Pam Grier. Though she had her film debut in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls unseen somewhere in the background of the opening party scene and therefore should be included, we feel that a Wonderment of her caliber deserves an entry all of her own — a Sisyphean task we might one day undertake. That's her below on the set of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, standing next to Cissy Colpotts (See Pt. XI & XII).
So far, we have looked at the T&A careers of the following:
Part I: The Non-babe of Note — Princess Livingston
Part II: Background Babe — Jacqulin Cole
Part III: Background Babe — Bebe Louie
Part IV: Background Babe — Trina Parks
Part V: Background Babe — Lavelle Roby, Pt. I (1968-76)
Part VI: Background Babe — Lavelle Roby. Pt. II (1979-2021)
Part VII: Killer Babe — Samantha Scott
Part VIII: Background Babe — Karen Smith
Part IX: Background Babes — The Five Mysterians
Part X: Background Babe — Gina Dair
Part XI: Background Babe — Cissi Colpitts, Pt. I (1970-80)
Part XII: Background Babe— Cissi Colpitts, Pt. II (1981-88)
Part XIII: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Phyllis Davis, Pt. I (1966-73)
Part XIV: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls — Phyllis Davis, Pt. II (1975-2013)
The Secret Life of an American Wife
(1968, dir. & writ. George Axelrod)
Edy Williams finally makes it onto the posters — not just as the main image, but even with her name (if in smaller print and relegated to a lower corner). She also went blonde for this movie.
The Secret Life of an American Wife is the second and last directorial project of George Axelrod, his first being the cult fave Lord Love A Duck (1966 — see: Phyllis Davis, Pt I). Like that film, Secret Life was a box-office bomb and aims its humor at topics that were possibly once considered shocking in suburban USA.
Time, which once upon a time actually reflected the opinions of the conservative suburbia but now seems like a beacon of progressive intelligence in a nation slipping into "one-party democracy", said: 
"[...] The picture is witless and pointless. Worse, it is also sexless. In the title role of a bored suburban housewife, Anne Jackson prattles endlessly to the camera about love and commuting, but never manages to make a connection with the audience or her fellow players. As an oversated [sic] movie-star seducer, Walter Matthau — unglamorous, unamorous and unfunny — galumphs around with his shirt off, revealing a physique as saggy as the script."
The Secret Life of an American Wife is "a lightweight sitcom-styled comedy that has a 34-year-old married Connecticut suburban housewife Victoria Layton (Anne Jackson) questions her sexual desirability. She's the wife of public-relations man Tom Layton (Patrick O'Neal of Silent Night, Bloody Night [1972]), whose biggest client is the renown virile movie star played deliciously by Walter Matthau. Hubby's agency secures top-line $100 an hour call girls for his aging star-client, Matthau. When Jackson finds this out, she manages to pass herself off as a call girl sent to Matthau's hotel suite as she anxiously tries to prove to herself that she has sex appeal. Matthau turns out to be a dour neurotic, with sinus trouble. [Dennis Schwartz]"
"Whenever George Axelrod writes a screenplay, it somehow looks as though it were a play that he couldn't get produced so he adapted it for film. Such is the case again here. [...] It's an immoral story but made somewhat palatable by Anne Jackson's plight and her desire to be desirable. Edy Williams, the one-time wife of Russ Meyer, plays the sexy girl who walks in and out of the fantasies of Jackson as she relates her problems directly to the camera in a very stagy fashion. The same subject matter is handled better and with more taste in Belle De Jour (1967 / trailer), with Catherine Deneuve starring as a married woman who spends her afternoons working in a brothel. A good idea that goes somewhat awry because the author-producer-director couldn't make up his mind if he was doing a French farce or a British satire. [TV Guide]"
Where It's At
(1969, writ. & dir. Garson Kanin)
A dramedy, one of two "contemporary" flicks directed by Garson Kanin (24 Nov 1912 – 13 Mar 1999) in 1969, the other being the forgotten Dick van Dyke comedy, Some Kind of Nut; neither movie is that good, but in both the great, pure late-sixties look and faux-hip vibe does have its appeal.
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Where It's At is also noteworthy, perhaps, as being the feature film debut of Brenda Vaccaro (of The House by the Lake [1975 / trailer]).
Where It's At —
the full movie:
At All Movie, Dan Pavlides has the plot: "A.C. Smith (David Janssen [27 Mar 1931 – 13 Feb 1980] of Moon of the Wolf [1972]) is a Las Vegas casino operator whose son visits during his summer vacation from Princeton. His son Andy (Robert Drivas) would rather go to Europe, but daddy dearest wants him to learn the ropes of the gambling business. Pappy approves of and pays for a showgirl to teach his son an extracurricular lesson in erotica. Molly (Brenda Vaccaro) is A.C.'s worldly secretary who watches the office, and Don Rickles has a small role as a crooked blackjack dealer who is caught with his fingers in the pie. Andy catches on quickly and acquires two-thirds of the controlling interest in the casino. He'll have the best story about how he spent his summer vacation when he returns (if he does) to the hallowed halls of Princeton and Ivy League living."
For everything you want to know about the movie, may we suggest Poseidon's Underworld?
Pappy and son (seen above) were only separated in age by a bit more than seven years in real life. Edy Williams, seen on the poster above at the lower right, plays an evening's entertainment, the "voluptuous chorus girl named Phyllis Horrigan", whom Pappy Andy sends up "to teach his son an extracurricular lesson in erotica" when Pappy begins to fear that his son might be, well, a bit gay.
The last bit is almost retrospectively ironic, since in real life the handsome Robert Drivas was very much passing as straight for his career; unluckily, he died of AIDS-related illnesses at the age of 50 on 29 June 1986.
Among Drivas's better movies: the classic God Told Me To (1976 / trailer — see Richard Lynch) and The Illustrated Man (1969 / trailer), the latter being whence the image above of Drivas from behind comes.
At the world famous Dragon Theatre, for whatever reason The Illustrated Man, a Hollywood film, got paired with Donald A Davis's true-blue exploitation flick The Muthers (1968), starring Marsha Jordan and early Playboy Playmate Virginia Gordon, which we looked at briefly long ago in Harry Novak Pt. V — a fact we mention as an excuse to once again embed the following old clip of a pneumatic Marsha lounging around...
Marsha Jordan lounging...
"The film does have a bit of an interesting twist towards the end where the son decides to turn the tables on his father and takes advantage of one of his father's shady deals by purchasing the casino from under him and then throwing the old man out on the street. This of course shocks the father and forces him to reevaluate his values as well as what he has taught his son. This might have been more intriguing had the exact same theme not been done so much better in [...] Harry Chapin's classic song Cat's in the Cradle. [Sopophilia]"
Harry Chapin's
Cat's in the Cradle:
I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew
(1969, dir. Richard L. Bare)
"She may not be an old salt but she sure does have a fancy shaker."
We looked at this in our BOY-BVD entry on Bebe Louie, where we more or less wrote:
By the time Richard L. Bare (12 Aug 1913 – 28 Mar 2015), the director of Flaxy Martin (1949), made this rare excursion into feature films, he was a full-time professional director of TV shows; after I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew, he didn't make another feature film until his rather odd cult project, Wicked, Wicked (1973 / trailer). I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew was successful enough that a sequel was considered, but by then hunkadelic lead actor Gardner McKay had already decided to give up acting for writing.
Scene from
I Sailed to Tahiti with an All Girl Crew:
Over at Great Old Movies, they have a full plot description: "When he's drunk, Terry O'Brien (Gardner McKay) makes a bet that he can sail to Tahiti with an all-girl crew and arrive before his opponent, Josh (Fred Clark [19 Mar 1914 – 5 Dec 1968] of The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb [1964 / trailer]). If he loses, he has to give Josh his boat, the Samaran. His international crew consists of Liz (Diane McBain of The Mini-Skirt Mob [1968 / trailer] & The Deathhead Virgin [1974 / trailer]); sexy ex-stripper Marilyn (Edy Williams); Monique (Jeanne Rainer of The Touch of Flesh [1960/ trailer]); the cook and aspiring dancer Tamaya (Bebe Louie); and Janet (Arlene Charles). One of these women has viciously stabbed a man and is on the run, and there's a stowaway named Jimsy (Mary O'Brien), a tomboy who wants to join the crew and has a crush on Terry. If the movie weren't bad enough, we also have irritating Pat Buttram as a lawman on the hunt for the aforementioned stabber. [...] The gals are pretty; glib if charming McKay is as handsome as ever; there are some nice yachts and pretty blue water; and one clever bit, when Tamaya keeps eggs from rolling off the counter by putting them in her bra cups. There's maybe one other laugh in what seems like a not-very-expensive home movie. [...]."
The photo above shows the whole crew of the boat, with a smiling Bebe Louie at the front middle and, behind her to your right, Edy Williams. An oft-found, apocryphal tale about an event on set: "During the filming of I Sailed to Tahiti with an All-Girl Crew the boat gets stuck, and she [Edy Williams] and the other girls have to jump into the water. So all of her falsies come floating out from the top of her bikini. [Glamour Girls]"*
* The tale seems to have first been mentioned by co-girl crew star Diane McBaine, who "lost her virginity to Richard Burton yet writes his penis was too large to complete intercourse. (Film Book Notes)" That fact, as well as other salacious jaw-droppers and the tale of Edy's falsies, is found in McBaine's out-of-print biography, Famous Enough. Therein, she describes I Sailed to Tahiti with an All-Girl Crew "a piece of celluloid trash".
After the completion of I Sailed to Tahiti with an All-Girl Crew, Edi Williams and Russ Meyer married in Los Angeles (He was 48; she was 27.) One would think that Meyer marrying her would be proof enough that the apocryphal tale about floating falsies on the set of I Sailed to Tahiti with an All-Girl Crew is not true, but one cannot help but notice that somewhere along the way Williams experienced some noticeable post-puberty expansion of the bust that could possibly be put down to "surgical enhancement".
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
(1970, dir. Russ Meyer)
The plot, as found at AFI, which doesn't even mention Edi William's character, Ashley St. Ives: "Tired of playing to high school audiences, Kelly (Dolly Read), Casey (Cynthia Myers), and Pet (Marcia McBroom), members of a rock trio, travel to Hollywood, California, accompanied by Harris Allsworth (David Gurian), the band's manager and Kelly's lover. There, they are befriended by Kelly's Aunt Susan (Phyllis Davis), an advertising executive, who, despite the misgivings of her lawyer, Porter Hall (Duncan McLeod), decides to share with Kelly the family fortune.
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls:
At an orgy the band is discovered by the effeminate entrepreneur host, Ronnie 'Z-Man' Barzell (John La Zar), who rechristens them 'The Carrie Nations.' Among lovers quickly acquired at Ronnie's party are Lance (Michael Blodgett), a boorish gigolo, who enters into a liaison with Kelly; Emerson (Harrison Page), a law student who wins Pet's love; and Roxanne (Erica Gavin), a lesbian designer who captures Casey's heart. As the celebrated trio perform on national television, Harris, distraught by Kelly's infidelity and Casey's impregnation by him, hurls himself from the catwalk. He is rushed to the hospital, where Dr. Scholl (Dan White) informs Kelly that Harris can look forward to life as a paraplegic.
Realizing that Harris is her true love, Kelly devotes herself to his care. Touched by Casey's plight, Roxanne arranges an abortion. Ronnie invites Lance, Roxanne, and Casey to a private party, at which costumes are distributed. Dressed as Superwoman, Ronnie attempts to seduce Lance, who is attired in a loin cloth. Rejected, Ronnie binds the gigolo. After revealing that he is, in fact, a woman, Ronnie bears her breasts, brandishes a sword, and chops off Lance's head. She then plunges a gun into the sleeping Roxanne's mouth and fires. Terrified, Casey phones her friends, who rush to her rescue but arrive too late. As Emerson and Kelly attempt to subdue Ronnie, the gun discharges, killing the transvestite. During the fray, however, the crippled Harris is miraculously cured. In a triple wedding ceremony, Kelly and Harris, Pet and Emerson, and Aunt Susan and an old love are united."
Regarding Edy, over at DVD Drive-In, they opinion: "Phyllis Davis and Edy Williams had both been active in Hollywood for several years when they were cast in BVD. Davis, who would later gain cult film immortality for her turns in Terminal Island (1973 / trailer) and Sweet Sugar (1972 / trailer) and is just lovely in her rather thankless role as 'Aunt Susan', would also have the most lucrative career of the leading ladies, with a long run on the TV show Vega$ (1978-81). Williams would go in the complete opposite direction, going nowhere but down after her wild turn in BVD as the oversexed starlet Ashley St. Ives. [...] Today she refuses to discuss her Russ Meyer days, largely because of her notorious marriage to Meyer, but looking at the rest of her career, there is little left to talk about in seriousness. It's a shame, too, because her turn in BVD should have been a career-making performance! She growls her dialogue through quivering lips and sharpened fangs, oozing sexual innuendo with lascivious glances at the men in her path, spouting ludicrous pick-up lines, and whipping her lion's-mane of a hairdo wildly as she dances to The Strawberry Alarm Clock and jumps atop her male victims, a complete sexual animal and always commanding attention when on-screen. Williams' character was never meant to be a scene-stealer, but thanks to her relationship with Meyer, was beefed up and given several more scenes in the finished film. I could imagine an entire film of Ashley St. Ives, and that would have been a great spin-off if Meyer and Williams had remained together!"
The Strawberry Alarm Clock sing Girl from the City:
The Seven Minutes
(1971, dir. Russ Meyer)
We've looked at this movie twice before, once way back in 2011 as part of our R.I.P. Charles Napier career review, and then again two years ago, in the Babe of Yesteryear blog entry, Uschi Digard, Part IV: 1971, Part I. The Great Uschi, you see, supposedly flits by somewhere (un-credited) as the "Very Big Brunette with Gorilla".
Russ Meyer's wife Edy Williams had a juicier role, to say the least: she plays the duplicitous Faye Osborn, fiancée of the movie's hero Mike. She's even credited on the poster and in the trailer — a career highpoint. The film seems never to have had either a VHS or DVD release. For that, we did see it on TV as a wee lad.
The Seven Minutes:
Back in 2019, we more or less wrote: As anyone who's halfway into bosom-mania or classic sexploitation movies knows, the great Russ Meyer had a brief sojourn into mainstream filmmaking at the beginning of the seventies. The results were a decidedly mixed bag of only two movies, both of which are nevertheless intriguingly "Russ Meyer". The first and most successful is of course his classic satire of sexploitation and Hollywood, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970 / trailer) [...].
Then came this baby, what was originally meant to be the second of three films for 20th Century Fox, a firm that never knew why they signed him in the first place and that was for years [apparently] ashamed of the success of Dolls; they were happy to let him go after this movie, The Seven Minutes, flopped. And that it flopped is hardly surprising: it was neither a Meyer film, nor was it not. Instead, it was some sort of oddly anemic creature that you can't take your eyes off even as it makes you want to watch something else. The little flesh here discrete, the satire and melodrama barely visible — but, Wow! Did Russ Meyer ever go so overboard in the editing room with any other movie of his? No. And that alone makes it an interesting watch, even if it does almost leave you dizzy by the end of the movie: few shots last longer than four seconds. That, combined with Meyer's traditionally odd viewpoints and catchy blocking, makes for some pretty odd visuals in a movie whose only other true saving's grace is a huge cast of familiar if (in the case of many) no longer remembered faces. [...]
Despite the fact that The Seven Minutes is hardly a horror cult film, the website Horror Cult Films, which notes "there's lots of big-breasted women in tight tops in this movie", has the basic plot setup of this, a film version of Irving Wallace's eponymously named best seller (paperback cover above): "A sting operation occurs where two detectives enter a bookstore and purchase a copy of a book called The Seven Minutes so the seller can be prosecuted. Behind the operation is prosecutor Elmo Duncan (Philip Carey [15 July 1925 – 6 Feb 2009]), who wants to become a senator and feels that campaigning against pornography will give him votes, backed up by a group who wish to stamp out all youthful violence incited by salacious material in books and films. The publisher calls hot shot attorney Mike Barrett (Wayne Maunder [19 Dec 1935 – 11 Nov 2018]) to defend the book and he sets about uncovering the mystery of its true author, but at the same time, a teenager supposedly commits a rape, and his father owned.... a copy of The Seven Minutes...."
From the soundtrack —
B.B. King sings The Seven Minutes:
There are those who find this Meyer oddity oddly interesting, and it is, even if it is also, well, somewhat boring despite the idiosyncratic touches. Most people, however, tend to think like The Video Vacuum, which says, "Basically, the whole thing feels like an overlong episode of Matlock (1986-95) with a couple of titties tossed in. It's hard to understand why Meyer would want to make this movie. I'm sure the subject of free speech spoke to him, but he really is the wrong director to tackle the subject. Luckily for us, he quickly returned to his drive-in roots with his next picture, Black Snake (1973)." Black Snake, by the way, is a.k.a. Sweet Suzy.
Trailer to
Black Snake / Sweet Suzy:
BTW, as previously mentioned, Edy Williams had a juicy role in The Seven Minutes as the duplicitous Faye Osborn. The true female lead of the film, however, is the good gal of true heart Maggie Russell, played by the now generally forgotten Marianne McAndrew. McAndrew had made some waves with her first film, Hello, Dolly! (1969 / trailer), but if that film gave her feature-film career any momentum, The Seven Minutes killed it. Her final lead role in a feature film is in the wonderfully terrible slab of celluloid shit known as The Bat People a.k.a. It Lives By Night (1974 / trailer).
Paesano: A Voice in the Night
(1975, dir. John Myhers, Martin Ragaway, Jack Brooks & Alberto Sarno)
After The Seven Minutes, it took a full four years before Edy Williams took part in another feature movie — an obscure and forgotten independent project from Alberto Sarno, an L.A. restaurateur of Italian descent who ran a famously successful Italian restaurant, Sarno's Caffe dell 'Opera, a.k.a. Sarno's (once located at 1714 N. Vermont). In between, she divorced Russ Meyer.
Song + scenes:
"Alberto and his wait staff sang their favorites nightly and the tiny venue was soon packed with eccentric regulars. They included the usual Day of the Locust crowd — bit actors, opera lovers, muscle men, self-proclaimed royals, and a medium named Prince Nathan. [...] But Alberto still dreamed of bigger things. In 1976, he directed and starred in Paesano: A Voice in the Night, a low-budget tale of an Italian opera star trying to make it big in America. He wrangled a C-list cast that included professional exhibitionist Edy Williams, veteran character actor Aldo Ray, and Dean Martin's daughter Deana. [Actor Jack La Rue made his final film appearance in this film.] When the movie [...] failed to find a distributor or garner Oscar nominations, Alberto hosted his own awards show honoring overlooked films. The show was emceed by a man calling himself Count Anthony and a woman who claimed to be Countess Elaine of Brunswick. Sarno insisted he personally would win no awards and as one actress in the film admitted, 'He wasn't a great actor. It was his voice. That voice latched onto my sensitivities and could always make me cry.' [KCET]" Alberto Sarno was tragically killed in a possibly bungled mugging in 1987.
Scene:
Paesano: A Voice in the Night was long considered lost, but the AFI has an incomplete copy donated by the Sarno family. It is believed the movie may have had two public showings, both in LA. It did, in any event, get a VHS release somewhere along the way, if apparently only in Germany.
Scene:
"A music-filled love story about a young Italian singer (Sarno) and an American woman (Williams). Paesano searches for his love on the streets of New York City [Kino]"
Song + scenes:
Scandal in the Family
(1975, dir. Bruno Gaburro)
And then Edy Williams went to Italy, to play Zaira in Peccati in famiglia, a sex "drama" by director Bruno Gaburro, whose early and very serious and depressing end-of-days science fiction, uh, sex drama Ecce Homo (1969 / music) offers little true indication of the soft- and hardcore flotsam he was to end up making the focus of his career until he became a TV director. Mr. Gaburro's other claim to fame is that from 1962 to 1977, he was also Mr. Erika Blanc — some even claim he discovered her. Her filmography, in any event, is far more impressive than his.
Edy Williams's name made it onto most of the film's posters, despite the fact that of all the female roles in the film, hers is the most negligible. Indeed, she "dies (off-screen) of old-age/natural causes, a short time before the movie begins; her death is referred to in the present-day sequences, but we only see her as a young woman in flashbacks [...]. [Cinemorgue]" By the time the film begins, she has already been replaced by the "young and busty" Simonetta Stefanelli, whom some viewers might recognize from The Godfather (1972 / trailer), in which she dies young. At the time of filming Peccati in famiglia, Stefanelli was married to the movie's younger "lead", Milo (Michele Placido).
Bad dubbing —
Simonetta Stefanelli and Michele Placido in
Scandal in the Family (1975):
In the UK, Scandal in the Family got released as part of a double bill with a better if equally trashy movie, Love in a Woman's Prison, otherwise known as Women in Cell Block 7 (1973).
Trailer to
Women in Cell Block 7:
Wikipedia has the plot, in mangled English: "Carlo (Renzo Montagnani [11 Sept 1930 – 22 May 1997] of the substandard Umberto Lenzi comedies Pierino la peste alla riscossa [1982] and Scusi, lei è normale? [1979]), an industrialist, arrives at his villa in Piacenza to spend the holidays with his wife Piera (Juliette Mayniel of the classic Eyes without a Face [1960 / trailer], Staudte's Kirmes (1960 / German trailer] and the unbelievable slice of unmitigated Eurosleaze that is Bestialità / Dog Lay Afternoon [1976 / trailer / full film]) and his daughter Francesca (Jenny Tamburi [27 Nov 1952 – 1 Mat 2006] of Fulci's The Psychic [1977 / trailer] and Smile Before Death [1972 / soundtrack]). Upon arrival, he discovers that the cook — the attractive Zaira (Williams), who as a young boy he used to watch having sex and under whose covers he used to crawl — has been replaced by Doris (Simonetta Stefanelli), a young and busty widow who he has not seen since she was a child. Carlo immediately begins to court and seduce her. After a few days Milo (Michele Placido) arrives from the South, the son of Carlo's incapable brother. He is a student, young and successful. First, the boy conquers Francesca, who had an ambiguous relationship with her friend Fedora (Rossella Pescatore), then seduces Doris, whom he uses to move Uncle Carlo around, and finally Piera, who, more intelligent than her husband, is about to chase him from home. After assuring himself of the complete dedication of the three women of the house, Milo pushes the uncle, who suffers from a heart condition, to an excessive effort with the cook, causing him a heart attack. In this way the boy from the South inherits the villa, the factories, and the women."
Over at All Movie, Clarke Fountain tells it like it is: "Despite the fact that this film has a story about an ambitious but inept nephew who takes over the physical property and women of his rich nobleman uncle, it is mainly constructed to show as much erotic footage of copulating couples as could be managed under Italian censorship laws."
Theme to Peccati in famiglia,
by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis:
Dr. Minx
(1975, writ. & dir. Howard Avedis)
Not to be confused with The Minx (1969 / trailer), a much earlier film flop that was given a second life by adding sex scenes.
Shooting title: Dr. Vixen — we wonder why. Howard Avedis (25 May 1927 – 25 October 2017), born Hikmet Labib Avedis in Baghdad, received his MA in cinema at USC, where he was supposedly one of the top students of his year. After graduation, he eventually returned to Iran, where he made a variety of movies mostly unknown and unscreened outside that country, some perhaps even lost films by now (war tends to do that to things). By 1972, however, he was back in Los Angeles with his second wife, actress Marlene Schmidt, Miss Germany & Miss Universe of 1961, who had roles (usually small ones) in every movie Avedis made after 1968 (including two Iraqi films). That's her below.
And what movies Hikmet Labib Avedis made back in the US of A! As of 1972, Avedis specialized low-budget exploitation of all genres, and up until his death he produced a string of memorable (if sometimes basically bad and often over-plotted) trash films which, while fun and trashy, seldom held what their advertising campaigns promised. His most popular and famous is probably the trash classic The Teacher (1974 / trailer), but other "high points" include The Stepmother (1972 / trailer), Scorchy (1976 / trailer) and Mortuary (1986 / trailer). Dr. Minx is one of his middling movies, but it still is a "fun" watch that reflects his trashy auteur tendencies.
Trailer to
Dr. Minx:
As Video Zeta One points out, "His movies are [...] chock full of WTF moments. To watch a Howard Avedis movie is to wonder what the fuck just happened. He takes what should be a cookie-cutter run-of-the-mill story that should not even register on the crazy radar, and inject wildly nonsensical and weird moments (with plentiful nudity). [...] And, like every Howard Avedis movie [...], Dr. Minx is definitely worth a watch, but never a repeat viewing." WTF moments of Dr. Minx include the notably over-aged "teenagers", one of whom suddenly dresses and goes all Colombo...
Another thing Avedis also liked was putting females characters in focus, and Dr. Minx can be seen as a "part of an unofficial trilogy from director Hikmet (a.k.a. Howard) Avedis that also includes The Stepmother and The Teacher. All three films revolve around an older woman seducing a much younger man. Unfortunately, all of them contain way too much plot that gets in the way of the business at hand. [Video Vacuum]" His films, even when the lead character was male, generally also featured a strong female or female focus, even if the women were younger or didn't get it on with "younger men".
As for "too much plot that gets in the way of the business at hand", well, take a look at the full plot description supplied on the original one-sheet found, naturally enough, at the One-Sheet Index, which actually clarifies aspects that are hazy in the film (like did she or didn't she kill her husband?):
"Beautiful, young Carol (Edy Williams), a small town doctor, inherits a large sum of money when her older husband dies mysteriously. When she discovers that her fiancée Guss Dolan (William Smith [24 Mar 1933 – 5 Jul 2021], below not from the film, of Black Samson [1974] with Carol Speed and Marilyn Joi) has murdered her husband to get control of the family fortune, Carol, enraged, calls off the engagement and threatens to go to the police. But she does not reckon with Guss, who claims to have a tape proving Carol's complicity in the murder, and proceeds to blackmail her to the tune of $50,000.
Frightened and upset, Carol drives to the hospital and her car collides with two young men on a motorcycle — Brian (Randy Boone of Terminal Island [1973], with Phyllis Davis) and his best friend, David (Harvey Jason of Necromancy [1972]). Brian is badly injured and Carol drives him to the hospital, where she treats him herself. A tender relationship develops between Carol and Brian and, as they see more and more of each other, David grows extremely jealous. In time, Carol confides in Brian the whole story about the murder and the blackmail, and when she goes to Guss's house to make the final payment, Brian insists on accompanying her. He waits outside in the car for what seems an unbearable time, and taking Carol's gun from the glove compartment of her car, creeps up to the window of the house to see what's happening. Guss and Carol are involved in a violent fight, and when he sees Guss pull a gun on Carol, Brian impulsively fires at Guss, killing him.
In a panic, the lovers decide to bury Guss's body in the woods behind Carol's house but, unknown to them, David has witnessed the whole thing. Fulfilling his lifelong ambition to be a crack detective, David decides to handle the case himself, rather than go immediately to the police, and advises Brian to give Carol up and tell the police that it was she who killed Guss. Brian refuses, and David goes off to fetch the Sheriff (Alvy Moore [5 Dec 1921 – 4 May 1997] of Intruder [1989 / trailer], Scream [1981 / trailer], The Brotherhood of Satan [1971 / trailer] and The Witchmaker [1969 / trailer]).
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"Now really frightened, Brian and Carol dig up the corpse and take it out to the desert and burn it. In the meantime, David arrives at Carol's house with the Sheriff, only to find the lovers and the body gone. Understandably, the Sheriff is annoyed at what he thinks is a practical joke, and David is humiliated.
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"When Carol and Brian return from their grueling experience in the desert, David is still at the house, crushed because his big chance has been spoiled. But he still has an ace up his sleeve — Guss's watch, which he found at Carol's house the night of the murder. When he reveals this evidence, Brian impulsively jumps David, and a fight ensues, during which David pulls a gun and shoots his friend. Carol rushes Brian to the hospital, but there is little she can do for him by this time, and he dies in her arms. As Carol takes one last look at Brian, she realizes that he truly loved her."
As for Williams's thespian abilities, Every 70s Movie is blunt: "Notorious for her carnal abandon in onetime husband Russ Meyer's movies and for cavorting naked at Cannes, Z-lister Edy Williams earned what appears to have been her first and last starring role outside adult films with this sloppy comedy/drama/thriller hybrid. Her mesmerizingly bad performance is the only reason to watch the movie, and it's especially fun to watch her share the screen with B-movie icon William Smith. In other contexts, Smith's acting often seems limited, but when performing alongside Williams, he seems like a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.".png)
As for Smith, in an interview with Shock Cinema, he said of Williams, "What a trial she was, Jesus... Why did they think she could act at all? Every time she said a line, it looked like the first time she read it, like she was five years old or something. A real sing-song."
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Somewhere along the way, Dr. Minx got released on a double bill with the regional cheapie, Cheering Section (1977). Later, scenes from Dr Minx were added to Ken Dixon's boobapedic videos, Famous T & A (1982), and The Best of Sex and Violence (1982).
Cheering Section:
The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington
(1977, dir. William A. Levey)
Opening credits to
The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington:
Edy Williams appears in this movie as "Professor Simmons", you even see her all of a half of a second in the trailer standing next to Joey Heatherton in a lab scene. We took a long look at this movie for the first time back in October 2020, in our Babe of Yesteryear review, Marilyn Joi Part IV: 1977-80 (that's Marilyn Joi below), where we wrote way more than what we excerpt below...
"She served her country... the only way she knew how!"
As one can imagine, the movie's title does not refer to the state. This is an early documentary about Donald Trump, the titular hooker of the title who goes to Washington...
Just kidding! Trump may be a political whore, but he was still just paying for hookers when the real titular hooker of this film, Xaviera Hollander, pictured bellow, gained international fame as "the Happy Hooker". (For a review of her first book, The Happy Hooker, go here at our currently semi-dead blogspot Mostly Crappy Books.) Incongruent to the poster tagline, Xaviera's [home] country is the Netherlands.
Xaviera's first book was filmed in 1975 (scene), starring Lynn Redgrave, and since the movie was a financial success a sequel was greenlighted. Redgrave bailed on the decidedly more low-rent sequel, The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington, which was based on no previously published Xaviera book (but got a novelization written by Anne Fletcher), and was replaced by Joey Heatherton, whose career was (and remained) on the skids. This sequel was followed roughly three years later by The Happy Hooker Goes to Hollywood (1980 / trailer), which we took a look at in Part V of our R.I.P. Career Review of Dick Miller.
Gone:
Director William A. Levey will forever have a place in film history for his first directorial project, the anti-classic that is Blackenstein (1973 / trailer below), and also be at least fondly remembered as the scriptwriter and director of the Harry Novak-produced grindhouse comedy (with an uncredited Haji), Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman (1975 / theme) — oh, yeah, an additional claim to fame: Deborah Winger's first feature film appearance is in his dull comedy, Slumber Party '57 (1976 / scene). Scriptwriter Robert Kaufman (22 Mar 1931 – 21 Nov 1991) wrote better movies than this one, like Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (1965 / trailer) and Ski Party (1965, see Dick Miller Part II). Levey was a specialist of sophomoric humor, most of which dates badly.
Trailer to
Blackenstein:
As the Spinning Image points out, "Any resemblance between genuine prostitution and the kind depicted here was purely coincidental, as this was a comic romp first and foremost, with a bizarre roster of hard up celebs appearing in supporting roles, including George Hamilton as Xaviera's lawyer."
But Hamilton isn't the only odd and/or recognizable face in the movie: "The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington (1977) is a cinematic time capsule. Think of an actor or actress who you saw every week on television in the 70s but whose name you just cannot remember. He or she is in this movie. The guy who played Darrin Stevens's boss on Bewitched (both Darrins, same boss)? He's in it. The frenetic corporal on F Troop (1965-67 / opening credits)? In it. [...] Billy Frickin' Barty is in it... as a mafia don... whose henchmen pick him up so he can be at eye level with those to whom he speaks. [...] Other members of the marvelous cast include Uncle Martin from My Favorite Martian (1963-66), Gunther "Ooh-Ooh" Toody from Car 54 (1961-63 / intro), Odd Job from Goldfinger (1964 / trailer), Rip Taylor from The $1.98 Beauty Show (1978-80 / what?), and Phil Foster and Jack Carter, who were required to be on TV every minute in the 70s. [...] Raven Delacroix (see: Up! in Uschi, Part IX), a staple of 70s nudie movies, has a short, uncredited part. [...] Two of Xaviera's girls... including the one who has gone missing... are played by former Hefmates. They are Miss May for 1973, Bonnie Large, and for 1974, Pamela Zinszer. [...] Cissie Cameron-Colpitts, Dawn Clark and Marilyn Joi provide the bulk of the exposure. [...] You'd never guess the names, but you might recognize the... uh, faces. [Movie House Commentary]"
Interestingly enough, Movie House Commentary caught the uncredited, few-seconds appearance of Raven Delacroix, but completely missed Edy Williams. In fact, not one review of the movie anywhere that we could find makes mention of Edy Williams — so don't blink when you watch the trailer, or you'll miss her silent, smiling presence.
Trailer to
The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington:
"The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington is just bad. It's boring. The acting is terrible. The jokes fall flat. [...] Joey Heatherton plays Xaviera Hollander, a former madam who is now a businesswoman, magazine publisher, and sex-advice columnist. [...] Xaviera has been called to testify in front of the Senate Committee to Investigate Sexual Excess in America. And goddamn, this movie is stupid. But anyway, Xaviera goes to Washington to stand up for sexual freedom. Accompanying her is an attorney named Ward Thompson (George Hamilton) and, quicker than you can say 'Fifth place on Dancing with the Stars,' Ward is explaining to Xaviera why her testimony is so important. 'We're heading right into the teeth of a new puritanism,' he tells her. 'Under the new puritanism, there won't be any happy hookers!' Anyway, Xaviera testifies in front of the committee and we get a few flashbacks to some of Xaviera's past accomplishments. And then she gets recruited by a dwarf (Billy Barty) and is sent to seduce a Middle Eastern ruler and ... well, it just keep going and going. This is one of the longest 84-minute films ever released. Anyway, this movie sucks. (And so does Xaviera! That's the level of humor that you can expect when you watch The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington.) [Through a Shattered Lens]"
The Video Vacuum, which admits that what they liked about the movie "doesn't necessarily make for a good movie", saw some positive things on the screen: "The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington is a much better movie than the original for a few reasons. First off, the producers hired a REAL director for the film, not just some dope whose only other credits are TV shows. Of course, the guy they hired was William A. Levey, the director of Blackenstein. He's not exactly Orson Welles or anything, although he does know how to film titties bouncing up and down. Which brings me to the second reason Goes to Washington is more entertaining than the first one: it features a hell of a lot more nudity than its predecessor. In fact, there are more tits in the first ten minutes of this movie than there was in the entire running time of Part 1. Thirdly, there are actual jokes this time out. Of course, they are jokes that wouldn't get a laugh in a burlesque house in 1932, but they are jokes nevertheless. Finally, the supporting cast is a lot more fun. [...] Never mind the fact that they aren't really given anything to do, at least they're here dammit."
At least at the Family Drive-in at Mundys Corner, The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington was part of a family appropriate — fit for kids of all ages! — double feature with the equally lame movie Linda Lovelace for President (1975 / scene below), starring the titular star of the X-rated groundbreaker Deep Throat (1972 / soundtrack). A perfect pairing, to say the least.
Linda Lovelace for President:
An Almost Perfect Affair
(1979, dir. Michael Ritchie)
In all truth, Edy Williams is (perhaps, "was") famous less for her acting projects than for her generations of showing up at the big film industry events like the Oscars and Cannes in skimpy, attention-getting outfits. Thus it was perhaps kismet that she was eventually to appear (uncredited, of course) as herself in a movie set in Cannes. Somewhere along the way, she shows up during a semi-documentary interlude of a pitching session pitching a script for a flick starring herself. Then she, like a multitude of other familiar faces of the time that show up in the background — Brooke Shields, Farrah Fawcett-Majors, Rona Barrett (who?), George Peppard, etc. — is never seen again.
"Keith Carradine plays a first-time director who has sunk two years and all his money into a movie about the execution of murderer Gary Gilmore. With his last bit of cash, he flies himself and his picture to Cannes, but the film is seized by French customs. [Mubi]" Along the way, he has an affair with the Euro-beauty wife (Monica Vitti [3 Nov 1931 – 2 Feb 2022] of Modesty Blaise [1966 trailer below]), the wife of producer Federico Barone (Raf Vallone), the latter of whom assists in getting the movie released from customs.
Trailer to
Modesty Blaise (1966):
"[...] More often than not, movies about movies aren't really about movies, but rather about the whiny angst of petulant filmmakers. Yawn. In this particular instance, Carradine's down-home charm is not enough to surmount the narcissistic aspect of his character, and Vitti is yet another European starlet hampered by a thick accent and a vapidly decorative role. Venerable comedy helmer Michael Ritchie directed this flop, which commenced his fall from grace after a hot streak that included The Candidate (1972 / trailer) and The Bad News Bears (1976 / trailer). [Every 70s Movie]"
"But the best part of the film is Georges Delerue's lovely score [...]. But really, if you want to see what director Michael Ritchie was really capable of, watch his delightful beauty-pageant satire Smile (1975 / trailer). [If You Want the Gravy]"
An Almost Perfect Affair (main title)
by Georges Delerue
Willie & Phil
(1980, dir. Paul Mazursky)
God only knows why, but we actually saw this one as a pubescent. The best thing about the experience was leaving the theatre. Willie & Phil is Paul Mazursky's American riff on Truffaut's Jules and Jim (1962 / trailer). To make the source even more obvious than the narrative itself does, Mazursky opens the movie by having the eponymous two lead male characters, Willie (Michael Ontkean of Necromancy [1972]) and Phil (Ray Sharkey), meet at a screening of Truffaut's movie. "The two hit it off immediately and soon find their circle of two expanding to three when they meet Jeanette (Margot Kidder), a free-spirited Southerner who has moved to New York City to figure out her life. Jeanette soon moves in Willie, but the three find themselves in a romantic triangle that constantly shifts over the next nine years as each of the three struggles to find their destiny while honoring the love they feel for each other. [Donald Guarisco @ All Movie]"
German trailer to
Willie & Phil:
Kidder is sadly miscast, the film a snore. And Edy Williams? At one point, the trio drop acid in a movie theatre and watch Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). [Not a film to drop acid to, to say the least.] And who do we see onscreen? Among others, Edy Williams as Ashley.
The Best of Sex and Violence
(1982, dir. Ken Dixon)
As mentioned further above in Dr. Minx (1975), footage of Edy Williams's nude scenes is featured here in Famous T & A (1982). As is, actually, footage of fellow Beyond the Valley of the Dolls co-star Phyllis Davis, and, as perhaps to be expected, of the Great Uschi — which is why we already took a look at this "documentary" in June 2020, in our Babe of Yesteryear entry Uschi Digard, Part XI: 1978 to Addendum, where we more or less wrote:
A direct-to-video "documentary". As tends to happen when a woman become a name celebrity (not that Edy Williams was ever really a big "name celebrity") suddenly everyone — or at least every cis-gendered male — wants to see the woman's assets. And as a result, people like Ken Dixon delve through their filmographies to find any and every time their "personality" is shown as god made them. For lifetime skin or softcore starlets, this raises hardly an eyebrow, but for those who only occasionally went the exploitation mile before going mainstream, it's an annoying embarrassment. We doubt it was an embarrassment for Edy Williams.
Most Ken Dixon documentaries also pretty much a recycling of clips, but this project, produced by Charles Band and Michel Catalano and Frank Ray Perilli, is less a documentary than a collection of 28 trailers. As such, it is a lot more fun than the average hairy-palm movie with a fake plotline, which is why we thought we'd take a look at it — that, and because it was "written" by the recently departed Frank Ray Perilli (30 Aug 1925 – 8 Mar 2018), the former stand-up comic who had his finger in many an interesting pie as actor or writer or co-writer or producer — for example, New Orleans Uncensored (1955 / movie), Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962 / trailer below), Michael Pataki's Cinderella (1977 / trailer), Adult Fairy Tales (1978 / trailer), Alligator (1980), Dracula's Dog [1977 / trailer), Mansion of the Doomed (1976, which we take a look at in our Babes of Yesteryear feature on Marilyn Joi) and more.
Trailer to
Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962):
At All Movie, Brian Gusse has the basic facts: "This compilation of previews from low-budget action films & softcore sex films is hosted by veteran horror actor John Carradine (5 Feb 1906 – 27 Nov 1988) [...]."
The fabulous blogspot Temple of Schlock, whence the advert shown further above is taken, mentions that "The Charles Band-produced trailer compilation The Best of Sex and Violence played midnight shows in 14 Chicago area theaters on February 5-6, 1982 as a presentation of The Alternative Film Society, a New Jersey-based organization that 'four-walled' theaters for midnight movie screenings and dusk-to-dawn shows in the early 1980s. [...] None of the movies pictured in the ad (The Dirt Gang [1972, see Uschi Part XI], Werewolves on Wheels [1971/ trailer], two different Ginger flicks) have anything to do with The Best of Sex and Violence."
At Unrated Film James Klein says, "This video [...] was the first video to ever be released of just movie trailers [...]. Full Moon has released this gem of trailers ranging from Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976 / trailer), Zombie (1979) [...] and The Doberman Gang (1972 / trailer) one of my own personal favorite trailers). What I loved about these trailers from the 70s was that they showed everything: faces being blown apart, breasts bouncing everywhere (back when women had some damn meat on their bones) and profanity that could make a truck driver blush. Sometimes these trailers were even better than the films themselves. The Best of Sex and Violence mixes all sorts of genres so that you may see a few horror trailers and then it will jump into a trailer for Dolemite (1975 / trailer). [...] But be warned, this is not the best quality. Maybe my favorite part of The Best of Sex and Violence may be David [8 Dec 1936 – 3 June 2009] and Keith Carradine's cameo appearance alongside their dad and their awkward interaction between the three. Oh wait, the opening has a woman (Laura Jane Leary) being chased topless down a street as an unseen killer chases after her. Yeah, boobs always trump Carradines."
The Best of Sex and Violence:
Famous T & A
(1982, dir. Ken Dixon)
As mentioned further above in Dr. Minx (1975), footage of Edy Williams's nude scenes is featured here in Famous T & A (1982). As is, actually, footage of fellow Beyond the Valley of the Dolls co-star Phyllis Davis, and, as perhaps to be expected, of the Great Uschi — she is why we already took a look at this "documentary" in June 2020, in our Babe of Yesteryear entry Uschi Digard, Part XI: 1978 to Addendum, where we more or less wrote:
Remember the day when (discreet) T&A was the staple of the prime-time programming of the traditional big three? When, unlike on pay TV, the hard nipples were always kept under a T-shirt...?
Saturday Night Live:
Famous T & A was the immediate follow-up to Charles Band & Michel Catalano & Ken Dixon's The Best of Sex and Violence, this time without host John Carradine or "scriptwriter" Frank Ray Perilli. More so than the previous "film" we looked at, The Best of Sex and Violence, which is mostly a collection of trailers, Famous T&A is closer to the typical Ken Dixon documentaries in that it is pretty much also just a recycling of clips (to be exact, "archive footage", movie outtakes and trailers). Here, he actually cannibalizes his own previous project and reuses a lot of stuff already seen in The Best of Sex and Violence. Still, since we find movies like this a lot more fun than the average hairy-palm movie with a fake plotline, let's take a look at it.
Over Unrated Magazine, James "Who needs an editor?" Klein sounds cis-gender but not impressed: "Just one year later after The Best of Sex & Violence was released, director Ken Dixon came up with another idea in which to make a quick buck on the video market: naked celebrities. [...] Basically this is just the same recycled boobs that we saw in the last trailer compilation. [...] Famous T&A shows clips from mostly films that Charles Band produced or distributed, so there isn't a lot to choose from. It is nice to see Ursula Andress get a naked rub down from Mountain of the Cannibal God (1978) or Laura Gemser have a naked make out session with another woman in Emmanuelle Around the World (1977 / SFW trailer) but I personally would rather see these films than watch quick (or in some cases overlong) clips that are just randomly thrown together. I did enjoy [...] watching a bottomless biker chick drive down the highway provided me with some laughs but it just wasn't enough to hold my interest. [...] I will say that if you are an Elvira fan and always wanted to see what those huge jugs of hers look like, you get a clip from The Working Girls (1974 / trailer) in which she shows off those milkers. Maybe for some of you, this DVD is worth purchasing just for that."
Oscar-worthy acting in
Working Girls:
Video Vacuum liked the video/DVD a little bit more than James, saying, "Sybil Danning hosts this shot-on-video compilation of nude scenes of famous (and not-so famous) women. [...] Sybil appears (dressed as a gladiator no less) and introduces a bunch of clips for 75 minutes. Some of the highlights include Phyllis Davis appearing in outtakes from Terminal Island ([1973 / trailer below] including some full frontal nudity that doesn't appear in the film), a pre-Flash Gordon (1980 / trailer) Ornella Muti, [...] Bridget Bardot, Claudia Jennings (in scenes from Truck Stop Women [1974, see Uschi Part XII]), Elvira (her striptease from Working Girls), Jacqueline Bisset, Laura Gemser, Vanity, and Russ Meyer stars Edy Williams and Uschi Digard. [...] The trailers are an especially nice touch. They break up some of the monotony of the unedited clips, some of which play out too long. [...] At 75 minutes, Famous T & A is just long enough not to wear out its welcome. However, if the filmmakers cut out all the filler of non-famous T & A [...] and kept the running time to about an hour, it might've been classic."
Ha ha, it's Burl was, in turn, less impressed than James, saying that Famous T & A "seems to have been organized much in the manner that Jackson Pollock organized his paint droplets! [...] All in all, it's kind of a boring cruickshank of a motion picture! The video box implies that we'll see all sorts of now-famous people in various states of undress, and sure, we do see naked ladies, but they somehow manage to drain that experience of any prurient interest whatever! Ha ha, quite a feat! [...] And worst of all perhaps is the stuff they make Sybil Danning say! My gosh, it makes the end credits of Howling II (1985 / trailer) seem like an exercise in dignified solemnity by comparison! The poor woman — I hope she was at least well paid!"
In general, the quality of the images sucks: everything seems to be taken from VHS versions of the movies.
Played somewhere during the film —
For Your Love by The Yardbirds:
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