Too Hot to Handle (1977)

More sexploitation junk from the husband-and-wife team of filmmaker Don Schain and actress Cheri Caffaro, the folks responsible for three movies about libidinous private detective Ginger McAllister, Too Hot to Handle is a would-be thriller set in the Philippines. Caffaro plays an assassin named Samantha Fox, who lives on a yacht between completing high-priced hits. She often uses sex to lure victims, as when she coaxes a dude into a bedroom before tying him up and covering his head with a plastic bag. In another scene, she woos a lesbian cosmetics magnate into a mud bath, then suffocates the woman with electrodes normally used for skin rejuvenation. Pursuing Samantha from one crime scene to the next is policeman Domingo De La Torres (Aharon Ipalé). Schain tries for James Bond-style banter between Samantha and her dogged pursuer, but Schain’s predilection for sleaze ensures the dialogue never leaves the gutter. (Upon sensing Domingo’s sexual interest, Samantha says, “Promise if you rape me, you’ll work the case.”) While Too Hot to Handle has a coherent storyline and Schain employs extensive location photography to up the production values, there’s nothing here for a self-respecting viewer to enjoy. The martial-arts scenes are terrible, with the frail-looking Caffaro badly miming chops and kicks, and the sex scenes are tacky. Schain’s idea of clever cross-cutting involves juxtaposing Caffaro writhing with shots of a real cockfight. Throughout, Caffaro provides the same strange screen presence she did as Ginger McAllister. Gangly and tan, with bleach-blonde hair, she’s neither curvaceous nor particularly sexy, so her appeal presumably stems from being thin and uninhibited. And even though she tries to fill her line deliveries with badass attitude, she’s hopelessly inept.

Too Hot to Handle: LAME

A Place Called Today (1972)

The world was not waiting for a Big Statement from filmmaker Don Schain and his then-wife, clothing-averse starlet Cheri Caffaro, who earned notoriety with the sexed-up espionage flick Ginger (1971). Nonetheless, in between making sequels to Ginger, the couple tackled a slew of social issues in the ridiculous melodrama A Place Called Today, which inexplicably received an X-rating during its initial release. (The version I watched contains nothing more than some bloody violence, coarse language, and simulated sex.) Cynical, heavy-handed, and unbelievable, the movie depicts a young black politician who stokes civil unrest by secretly conspiring with criminals and then runs for mayor by promising to end the unrest. Since it was filmed at a time when plugged-in directors were engaging the Black Power movement head-on, the plot of A Place Called Today is weirdly old-fashioned, like a racially tinged riff on some old Edward G. Robinson potboiler. Furthermore, the filmmakers’ attempts to integrate elements of jet-set debauchery and youthful rebellion fall flat. Caffaro plays the horny daughter of a corrupt businessman, Lana Wood plays an earnest activist, and both of them sleep with a white reporter determined to uncover the black politician’s scheme. So what the hell is A Place Called Today trying to say? That everyone is misguided? That conscientious white people need to save African-Americans from themselves? That sex makes everyone insane? Compounding the muddiness of its rhetoric, A Place Called Today suffers from leaden pacing, wildly inconsistent acting, and a vile portrayal of women. After all, the picture concludes with a gruesome rape/murder scene. In sum, if you’re looking for an inept movie that contains both gratuitous nudie shots and lengthy debates about the pros and cons of capitalism, then A Place Called Today was made for you.

A Place Called Today: LAME

Ginger (1971) & The Abductors (1972) & Girls Are for Loving (1972)

          In some quarters, this sleazy trilogy is referred to as "Jerseysploitation," because the series emerged from the Garden State. Funny though it may be, the label is misleading since it suggests the pictures contain something culturally or geographically distinctive. Not so. Cheap, grungy, and unpleasant, these movies could just as easily have been made anywhere. More importantly, they could just as easily have not been made anywhere. Sadly, the pictures exist, collectively representing the crowning achievement of a bland screen personality named Cheri Caffaro. Uncharismatic, uninhibited, and untalented, the extremely blonde and extremely tall Caffaro spends the duration of this series giving stilted line deliveries while acting the role of a wealthy socialite who moonlights as a private detective. That is, when she isn't performing roughly the function of a porn actress by participating in highly realistic--and yet spectacularly unerotic--love scenes. All three movies were written and directed by Caffaro’s husband, Don Schain.

          In the first picture, Ginger, heroine Ginger McAllister (Caffaro) accepts an assignment to infiltrate a criminal gang responsible for blackmail and drug trafficking. Setting aside the clumsy and vague plot, the takeaway is that Ginger’s a nymphomaniac with a cause, willing to use her body in the name of justice. For example, Ginger comforts a young woman whom she’s just rescued from captivity by going down on the woman, then assuring the woman that their encounter doesn’t mean they’re lesbians. It’s not all fun and games, however; later in the movie, Ginger handcuffs a dude to a bed, strips naked, and rubs against him until he’s aroused, at which point she ties a piano wire around his member and threatens castration unless he cooperates. None of the sex in Ginger is explicit, but the love scenes are so raw that it’s surprising Ginger escaped an X-rating. In any event, except perhaps for those who relish themes of abuse, bondage, and rape, Ginger is utterly disposable.

          The same can be said, more or less, of the picture’s first sequel, The Abductors. Made with a moderately higher budget and featuring zippier music than its predecessor, The Abductors finds Ginger tasked with capturing criminals who kidnap young women, employ brainwashing and torture to transform the women into sex slaves, and sell the women to clients who pay upwards of $100,000 per playmate. While the action scenes and the storytelling in The Abductors improve on those in Ginger, the film is still so unremittingly tacky that it’s impossible to muster any praise. Schain’s idea of a sex scene usually involves having a doughy naked dude place himself atop an uncomfortable-looking woman and then grind away, with private parts just barely hidden from view; for a filmmaker preoccupied with putting sex onscreen, Schain proves remarkably unimaginative when trying to accomplish the task. Caffaro’s performance in The Abductors is just as awful as it was in Ginger, especially when she breaks into one of her signature dance numbers. Yes, in each movie, Caffaro shakes her groove thing for an extended period, and her footwork is as weak as her acting.

          Of the trilogy, only the final picture, Girls Are for Loving is remotely tolerable, though it’s hardly meritorious. In the first 10 minutes, criminals parachute onto the grounds surrounding a ski lodge, kidnap the man of the house, and rape and murder the woman of the house, concluding the whole enterprise with an explosion. Girls Are For Loving represents Schain’s boldest attempt to date at mimicking the 007 formula, and, indeed the film’s story is as convoluted and twisty as the narrative of any Bond film. Girls Are for Loving provides Ginger with a proper adversary, the vicious Ronnie St. Clair (Sheila Leighton), and the movie features a mildly entertaining sled run down a mine-laden mountainside. It’s all very low-budget, to be sure, but it’s better than what came before. The nasty sex stuff is still present, including an odd preponderance of handjob scenes, yet Girls Are For Loving also has a certain self-awareness—at one point, Ginger and Ronnie have a conversation about the difference between love and lust. Alas, any hope the series might have found a brain is dashed by the scene in which Ginger responds to an inquiry about whether she considers herself promiscuous: “Let’s just say I like to fuck a lot.” Subtle!

          Caffaro and Schain reteamed once more after the Ginger series by introducing the new adventure character Samantha Fox in Too Hot to Handle (1977), but that picture failed to generate any sequels.

Ginger: LAME

The Abductors: LAME

Girls Are for Loving: FUNKY