she-man/sins of rachel
ah, incest, homosexuality, blackmail, jazz music, murder, and gender-bending. thank you, something weird, for making our lives better by offering us cinematic bizarreness. now if only said bizarreness was regularly better in practice than it is in theory.
anyway, she-man is the story of army lieutenant albert rose (played by leslie marlowe) being blackmailed by dominita (dorian wayne). see, albert was involved in a little bribery back in korea to keep from being charged with "desertion under fire," and our woman-impersonator friend dominique is threatening to reveal his treachery to the wrong (or right) people, thereby ruining albert and his father, who happens to be a senator.
her terms? $20,000 and one year of albert's life to be dominique's personal servant. during that year, she makes albert take estrogen pills, wear women's clothing, and act as her maid at home, where she employs a number of other people that she forces into working for her, all while crossdressing. it turns out that dominita's a bit of an extortionist.
eventually, a love triangle develops between albert rose, rose albert (his female alter-ego), and dominita's right-hand woman, ruth, who really only loves al as rose.
at this point, there are some slight undertones suggesting that all al and ruth need is a little "help" in order to get along and love each other like "normal" people do (in fact, al even says this at one point), which seems kind of odd considering most of the rest of the movie's seeming acceptance of alternative lifestyles.
al and ruth use their newfound love to find a way to break dominita's hold on them by doing a little blackmail themselves, and threatening to reveal that dominita was once dominic festro, another deserter from the u.s. army.
all of dominita/dominic's servants rebel, and al and ruth start seeing a psychologist, and live happily ever after.
there are bookending segments from the "psychologist" who pleads for everyone to "aquaint and educate ourselves to accept...our fellow men in a compassionate and understanding way," but then refers to "transvestitism" as an "affliction" and "problem."
all said and done, much like its main characters supposedly are, this movie seems confused, both about what it's saying and what it wants to be saying. on top of that, for me it didn't really have much entertainment value beyond mild curiosity. the dialogue felt forced a lot of the time, and the pace dragged, even though it was only an hour long. what could have been an interesting psychological drama (even though it's billed as "comedy" by netflix) just turns out to be nothing but a rather dull, late 60s, "i can't believe they made this" oddity.
this half of the double feature gets 2 out of 5.
the sins of rachel is an early 70s murder mystery with more red herrings than a british grocery store.
rachel waring (ann noble, who also wrote the screenplay, and who may just be a man) is a caberet singer/memoirist who is killed in her home on the eve of the publication of her book--a book that threatens to unleash many skeletons from various closets.
it appears as though rachel's book contains dirt on most everybody in town, and none of them are interested in having their secrets known.
everyone seems to think that it was her gay son jimmy who she made sleep in her room and tried to have sex with, but maybe it's not! lord knows there are enough suspects, and it seems like every new person that shows up on screen may have been the one to do the deed.
and then there's a random scene of jimmy's boyfriend (?) practicing his nunchaku moves in a field.
from there the investigation continues, but it's one of the dullest i've ever seen. it's got the cops asking people questions with flashbacks to their alibis, high drama about needing people but letting them go at the same time, extended scenes of dudes with their shirts off, talk of abortions, talk of marriage proposals, and a giant metal cobra head on the back of a lowrider motorcycle seat, all set to sweeping 70s romance movie music.
was it her son jimmy? was it jimmy's possible boyfriend pete? was it pete's father, who once had a thing with rachel? was it the guy she was paying for sex? was it her publisher? was it the local minister (who also happens to be jimmy's father and the father of jimmy's girlfriend...
)? who the hell was it and who the hell cares?
1 out of 5.
ah, incest, homosexuality, blackmail, jazz music, murder, and gender-bending. thank you, something weird, for making our lives better by offering us cinematic bizarreness. now if only said bizarreness was regularly better in practice than it is in theory.
anyway, she-man is the story of army lieutenant albert rose (played by leslie marlowe) being blackmailed by dominita (dorian wayne). see, albert was involved in a little bribery back in korea to keep from being charged with "desertion under fire," and our woman-impersonator friend dominique is threatening to reveal his treachery to the wrong (or right) people, thereby ruining albert and his father, who happens to be a senator.
her terms? $20,000 and one year of albert's life to be dominique's personal servant. during that year, she makes albert take estrogen pills, wear women's clothing, and act as her maid at home, where she employs a number of other people that she forces into working for her, all while crossdressing. it turns out that dominita's a bit of an extortionist.
eventually, a love triangle develops between albert rose, rose albert (his female alter-ego), and dominita's right-hand woman, ruth, who really only loves al as rose.
at this point, there are some slight undertones suggesting that all al and ruth need is a little "help" in order to get along and love each other like "normal" people do (in fact, al even says this at one point), which seems kind of odd considering most of the rest of the movie's seeming acceptance of alternative lifestyles.
al and ruth use their newfound love to find a way to break dominita's hold on them by doing a little blackmail themselves, and threatening to reveal that dominita was once dominic festro, another deserter from the u.s. army.
all of dominita/dominic's servants rebel, and al and ruth start seeing a psychologist, and live happily ever after.
there are bookending segments from the "psychologist" who pleads for everyone to "aquaint and educate ourselves to accept...our fellow men in a compassionate and understanding way," but then refers to "transvestitism" as an "affliction" and "problem."
all said and done, much like its main characters supposedly are, this movie seems confused, both about what it's saying and what it wants to be saying. on top of that, for me it didn't really have much entertainment value beyond mild curiosity. the dialogue felt forced a lot of the time, and the pace dragged, even though it was only an hour long. what could have been an interesting psychological drama (even though it's billed as "comedy" by netflix) just turns out to be nothing but a rather dull, late 60s, "i can't believe they made this" oddity.
this half of the double feature gets 2 out of 5.
the sins of rachel is an early 70s murder mystery with more red herrings than a british grocery store.
rachel waring (ann noble, who also wrote the screenplay, and who may just be a man) is a caberet singer/memoirist who is killed in her home on the eve of the publication of her book--a book that threatens to unleash many skeletons from various closets.
it appears as though rachel's book contains dirt on most everybody in town, and none of them are interested in having their secrets known.
everyone seems to think that it was her gay son jimmy who she made sleep in her room and tried to have sex with, but maybe it's not! lord knows there are enough suspects, and it seems like every new person that shows up on screen may have been the one to do the deed.
and then there's a random scene of jimmy's boyfriend (?) practicing his nunchaku moves in a field.
from there the investigation continues, but it's one of the dullest i've ever seen. it's got the cops asking people questions with flashbacks to their alibis, high drama about needing people but letting them go at the same time, extended scenes of dudes with their shirts off, talk of abortions, talk of marriage proposals, and a giant metal cobra head on the back of a lowrider motorcycle seat, all set to sweeping 70s romance movie music.
was it her son jimmy? was it jimmy's possible boyfriend pete? was it pete's father, who once had a thing with rachel? was it the guy she was paying for sex? was it her publisher? was it the local minister (who also happens to be jimmy's father and the father of jimmy's girlfriend...
)? who the hell was it and who the hell cares? 1 out of 5.