One of the great openings of American cinema – Constance Towers beating up a man, who rips off her wig to reveal she’s bald. She’s a hooker and he’s her pimp and the writer/director is Sam Fuller so there’s no punches pulled. She moves to a small town and after banging a tough-but-not-unsympathetic cop (Anthony Eisley in a good performance) she decides to turn her life around and become a nurse. She gets the towns richest man (Michael Dante) to fall in love with her but then finds out he’s a sex pervert, in another big jolt scene, and she kills him. The film comes out and names names – prostitute, pimp, slut, molestation. Fuller loves to use jarring close ups for shock, even when they don’t logically cut from one to another (try figuring out the choreography of the busted molesting scene). Towers is great – tough, imposing, compassionate. Dante looks creepy from the get go. You can’t figure out if Fuller is talking the piss with the schmaltz – the kids singing "Blue Bird of Happiness" – but you know something, the schmaltz does work.
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