The opening minutes of this features some sky diving stock footage, boobs and move in-jokes, and that pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the film, famously made as a bet by producer Jon Davidson who told Roger Corman he could make the cheapest film ever for New World.
This was accomplished by incorporating footage from previous New World/Corman films: sky diving (Private Duty Nurses), car chases (Caged Heat, Crazy Mama), a period car crash (Big Bad Mama), roller derby (Unholy Rollers – actually made for AIP but produced by Corman with Martin Scorsese directing), Philippine action films (The Hot Box, Women in Cages, The Big Doll House), The Terror (they see it at the drive in), a futuristic car chase (Death Race 2000, perhaps the largest amount of footage used).
There are three plots – someone is killing people on murder sets, Candice Rialson tries to break in to showbiz, as does a roller derby star (Rita Grey). The filmmakers drop these plots and pick them up again as they feel like it; they forget the murder plot for great slabs of time, and the romance between Rialson and the screenwriter is also forgotten – they meet, then they’re together.
The main attributes of this film are a likable, breezy tone and a very strong cast – Dante and Arkush were fortunate to have a terrific players who can fill the screen like Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel and Dick Miller. Woronov was a terrific exploitation star – she looked like this magnificent alien goddess from Mars, with those high cheek bones and incredible legs; she was also very funny. Rialson is incredibly likeable – the girl next door, very good at comedy. (Quentin Tarantino once asked Arkush why Rialson didn’t move up with either of them; he thought her career was ruined by her appearance in the film about the talking vagina. Apparently Roger Corman wanted Roberta Collins instead of Rialson – I am a Collins fan but think it was the right decision to go with Rialson. Incidentally, Barry Gordon and Dwayne Hickman turned down the role of the producer.)
The film does suffer from some New World requirements of the time. There’s a scene where Rialson plays a rape victim which starts off funny but then kind of becomes unfunny because Rialson gets her top ripped off and she’s really traumatised by it. Later on Rialson watches the rape on screen while watching the film at a drive in, then is almost raped by the drive in projectionist – rape just isn’t really fun and this scene s yuck, it takes a while to recover from that. It does but then there’s an unpleasant knife murder scene.
The behind the scenes line up of talent is impressive. Jon Davidson produced, Amy Jones was one of the editors, the script is credited to “Pat Hobby” nom de plume from F Scott Fitzgerald, Joseph McBride plays a father at the drive in, Todd McCarthy is there was well, Mike Finnell and Barbara Peeters were on the crew, Charles Griffith plays a pool cleaner (his former writing partner Mark Hanna also has a small role).
In the audio commentary from Dante, Arkush and Davidson, the filmmakers seem embarrassed about some of the film, including the gratuitous wet T-shirt scene (which they should), the three-way sex scene and the sunbaking scene (which they shouldn’t, that’s good exploitation). But then look at Arkush and Dante’s subsequent work – there is not a lot of nudity, I think they were uncomfortable with it. They admit to watching Murder by Television and The Death Kiss while writing the script – they say The Death Kiss gave them ideas but not Murder by Television. Incidentally, Roger Corman apparently got a little sensitive about some of the things in the movie (eg actors bagging the movies in which they appear).
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