The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971)

          “That’s the main drawback of this particular hobby,” notes Bill Alren. “The feeling of shame.” Alren’s hobby is spying on women in various states of undress, whether that manifests at peeking up a coworker’s skirt while she bends over or using binoculars to ogle bikini-clad ladies on a beach near his house in Los Angeles. As you might imagine, Bill’s hobby is a source of friction in his marriage to the beautiful but anguished Lisa (Joanna Shimkus). Even though Bill makes a good living as a stockbroker and provides her with a comfortable home, she’s frustrated by the mindless rhythms of a childless housewife’s lifestyle, so the discovery of Bill’s proclivity for peeping is the final straw. Since she leaves Bill within the first half-hour of The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, the bulk of the movie concerns Bill’s attempts to gain control over his lascivious impulses and to woo Lisa back into his life. Created by two of the key players behind The Graduate (1967), novelist Charles Webb and producer Lawrence Turman, this picture lacks the sociological heft of its predecessor, but it’s a respectable hybrid of comedy and drama with a few pithy observations about modern relationships.

          Among the film’s strongest elements are Richard Benjamin’s leading performance and the intelligent (if occasionally glib) screenplay by Lorenzo Semple Jr. Benjamin and Semple operate on the same level, articulating melancholy from the safety of a sarcastic remove, but because the central character is in some ways experiencing his own life from an outside-in perspective—he’s aware of the damage he inflicts but can’t or won’t stop himself—the arm’s-length style works. Turman, making his directorial debut, generates unhurried pacing that allows the gently plaintive textures of Fred Karlin’s score to add emotional dimensions. Yet Turman misfires a few times, especially during the climax, so there’s a reason a decade elapsed before he helmed another film: His work is adequate but not special. The same could be said of the film overall. It’s a little bit amusing, a little bit insightful, and a little bit sexy, but one strains to define any area in which the content or execution is superlative. Still, there’s a lot to enjoy here, and the cast is colorful: Elizabeth Ashley plays Lisa’s sister, Adam West plays the husband of Ashley’s character, and B-movie queen Tiffany Bolling plays a mysterious seductress.

The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker: FUNKY

Bonnie’s Kids (1973)

          An all-too-common storytelling technique among ’70s filmmakers catering to the drive-in market involved taking elements that worked in other low-budget movies and jamming them together for maximum pulpy impact, even if narrative dissonance resulted. As a case in point, the action thriller Bonnie’s Kids includes ingénues, lesbians, mobsters, horny rednecks, sleazy photographers, a heist story right out of an old film noir, and lurid scenes that could be generously described as attempts at sex comedy. Based on sheer percentages of screen time, Bonnie’s Kids is a crime movie by default, but there’s a lot of cinematic wandering amid the film’s 105 undisciplined minutes. And yet as awful and sloppy as the preceding description makes Bonnie’s Kids sound, it’s not a completely terrible movie. The performances by leading lady Tiffany Bolling and supporting actor Alex Rocco are tasty, the plotting is relatively intricate, some scenes contain a modicum of wit, and there’s more than enough sex and violence to keep the viewer’s reptile brain engaged.

          The story starts in the deep south, where sexy sisters Ellie Mae (Tiffany Bolling) and Myra (Robin Mattson) live with their drunken lout of a stepfather because their mother, Bonnie, died two years previous. After the stepfather tries to molest Myra, older sister Ellie Mae unloads a shotgun into his chest, and the sisters flee to L.A., where Bonnie’s brother is a businessman. Before long, Myra gets romantically involved with a predatory lesbian, while Ellie Mae gets roped into transporting a package across state lines for gangsters, which brings her into the orbit of fellow courier Larry (Steve Sandor). Once Ellie Mae seduces Larry, she persuades him to open the mysterious package they’re carrying. It’s full of cash, so Ellie Mae talks Larry into running away with her—and the money. Predictably, the Mafia doesn’t the theft lightly, so gunmen Digger (Timothy Brown) and Eddy (Rocco) are sent to recover the loot.

          The first half of Bonnie’s Kids is scattershot, but the second half works fairly well as a lovers-on-the-run melodrama. There’s even some real tension toward the end, despite Ellie Mae’s annoying tendency to shout, “What are we going to do?” every five seconds. Writer-director Arhtur Marks, who cut his teeth directing episodes of Perry Mason and later made several lively blaxploitation flicks, keeps the pace brisk and seizes every opportunity to showcase the curvaceous figures of starlets. One can do a lot better in the world of tacky ’70s exploitation pictures than Bonnie’s Kids, but one can also do a lot worse, because hints of real filmmaking periodically emerge from the boobs-and-bullets muck.

Bonnie’s Kids: FUNKY

The Wild Party (1975)

          It’s difficult to decide which aspect of The Wild Party is more bizarre—the idea that costume-drama specialists Merchant Ivory Productions could ever make anything justifying the adjective “wild,” or the idea that a Merchant Ivory film was distributed by drive-in suppliers American International Pictures. Adding to the overall strangeness of the piece is the subject matter. Set in 1920s Hollywood, the film concerns a debauched soiree thrown by an overweight silent-movie comedian. And yet The Wild Party is not based on the real-life scandal involving Fatty Arbuckle, an overweight silent-movie comedian who was accused of rape and murder. Why anyone thought it wise to film a story that sorta-kinda resembled the notorious Arbuckle case is beyond understanding. In fact, it’s challenging to discern the reasons why The Wild Party exists. Instead of being provocative and rough and sexy, the picture is chaste and genteel and tame. So even though it’s a handsomely produced film that offers a colorful window into the culture of 1920s Hollywood, the movie is mechanical and sterile. Without blood pumping the veins of something like this, what’s the point?

          Based on a narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March and written for the screen by Walter Marks (as opposed to Merchant Ivory’s usual scribe, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala), The Wild Party revolves around Jolly Grimm (James Coco), a man out of time. Although the industry has shifted to sound films, Jolly has invested most of his money in a new silent production, set to be his comeback after a five-year screen absence. To make matters worse, Jolly has grown distant from his sexy live-in mistress, Queenie (Raquel Welch). The comedian throws a huge party so he can present his new movie to studio heads, but as soon as the screening gets underway, it becomes clear no one is interested. Concurrently, Queenie becomes infatuated with a handsome party guest, Dale (Perry King). Eventually, the bash devolves into drunkenness, sex, and tragedy.

          Tonally, The Wild Party is a mess. At the beginning, Jolly’s writer friend, James (David Dukes), delivers rhymed voiceover to introduce the various characters, and James even speaks to the camera periodically. As this half-hearted trope fades away, the movie segues into unnecessarily long musical numbers, such as when Queenie performs a novelty number called “Singapore Sally” for the party guests. By the time The Wild Party ends, the filmmakers strive for some sort of bittersweet lyricism. These varied narrative elements don’t gel any better than the performances. Coco is robust and even somewhat poignant, but Welch is as amateurish as ever, despite looking magnificent in her Marcel Wave hairdo and slinky dresses. Among the supporting cast, artificiality and stiffness reign, though B-movie actress Tiffany Bolling tries to invest her role of a forsaken woman with pathos.

The Wild Party: FUNKY

The Candy Snatchers (1973)

          Even by the grim standards of ’70s exploitation cinema, The Candy Snatchers is a nasty piece of business. Other movies from the same period are more disturbing and/or sadistic, but few can match this kidnapping drama for sheer nihilism—nearly everyone in this movie is a sociopath, and a catastrophic body count accrues by the time the final credits roll. Along the way to the bloodbath finale, the movie features abduction, adultery, deceit, extortion, premature burial, and rape. The Candy Snatchers is not made with sufficient craft to qualify as a truly unsettling picture, since everything that happens onscreen feels artificial, but it’s a heavy trip nonetheless. Reportedly inspired by a real-life kidnapping that went awry, the picture concerns three would-be criminals, man-child Eddy (Vince Martorano) and siblings Alan (Brad David) and Jessie (Tiffany Bolling). Eddy is the muscle of the group, while attractive WASPs Alan and Jesse are the brains. All three hope to score easy money thereby and avoid getting jobs “for the man.”

          Their chosen target is middle-class prick Avery (Ben Piazza), the manager of a jewelry store. The crooks kidnap Avery’s teenage daughter, Candy (Susan Sennett), and then demand Avery give them all the diamonds in his store. Alas, the crooks never suspected that Avery is even more devious than they are—it turns out that Candy is only Avery’s stepdaughter, and that Avery had been looking for a way to kill her so he claim part of the large inheritance she’s due to receive upon reaching legal adulthood. This wrinkle complicates the kidnapping scheme in myriad ways, leading to deadly outcomes for many of the involved parties.

          Although the basic plot of The Candy Snatchers is creepy and surprising, the execution is mediocre at best. Screenwriter Bryan Gindoff provides clunky dialogue and dull plotting, while director Guerdon Trueblood films events in lifeless style. As for the acting, it’s all over the place. Piazza fares best, conveying a sense of banal evil, and David is okay as a burgeoning serial killer. Glamorous starlet Bolling has a few decent moments of iciness, though she seems amateurish during emotional scenes. Martorano runs the biggest gamut, since he’s quasi-affecting in vulnerable moments and cartoonish whenever conveying rage. In the end, The Candy Snatchers doesn’t merit especially close attention, though it unquestionably possesses more purpose and substance than the average sex-and-violence B-movie. Still, the film’s double-entendre title is probably better than the film itself.

The Candy Snatchers: FUNKY

Wicked, Wicked (1973)

          Viewed as a spoof rather than the thriller its poster promises, Wicked, Wicked is goofy fun. Presented almost completely in split-screen, with actions in different locations running simultaneously on either side of the frame, Wicked, Wicked shows a psycho killer (Randolph Roberts) terrorizing a posh California hotel while the facility’s in-house detective (David Bailey) tries to stop the murder spree. During fright scenes, one side of the frame shows the intended victim while the other shows the attacker, so there’s no real suspense. Additionally, the film sometimes uses the split-screen to offer pseudo-ironic commentary—the weirdest running gang involves repeated cuts to fisheye-lens shots of a deranged-looking old lady playing the score to the 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera on a pipe organ. At one point, the film punctuates a murder scene by cutting to the organ player the instant she chomps an apple and glares into the camera.

          Even the elements of the movie that seem like they’re being played straight deliver unintentional humor. The hero’s love interest (Tiffany Bolling) is a lounge singer who performs cheesy numbers like title song; warbled in a throaty style that would make Cher proud, the lyrics describe a woman’s desire to make “wicked, wicked” love to her man, leading to this refrain: “Wicked, wicked—that’s the ticket!” Leading man Bailey, who later found his niche in soap operas, is like a caricature of every hairy-chested ’70s heartthrob, and his delayed-reaction responses during fight scenes are beyond silly. Bolling, a pretty starlet/singer known for appearing in cult films (and in Playboy), is the definition of vapid, mugging half-heartedly through fright scenes.

          The oddest characterization comes from Madeleine Sherwood, best known as a costar on the ’60s sitcom The Flying Nun; she plays a strange older woman who unknowingly bonds with the baby-faced killer. She and her young friend share stories of their pasts while revelatory flashbacks play on the other side of the screen—turns out sweet little Mrs. Karadyne once killed a man herself, even though now she spends her days chatting with pigeons and practicing dance moves alone in her apartment.

          For further proof that Wicked, Wicked is weird, weird down to its very DNA, consider this factoid from the fine folks at IMDb: Wicked, Wicked’s writer-producer-director, Richard L. Bare, once held the record for directing the largest successive number of TV episodes, because he helmed 168 installments of Green Acres. Which, of course, made him the right guy to create a split-screen horror flick featuring onscreen beheadings.

Wicked, Wicked: FREAKY