Scarlet Negligee

Having seen several of the untalented itinerant filmmakers Whit Boyd and Ron Scott's movies I was well-prepared for the disaster which is SCARLET NEGLIGEE. IMDb gussies it up with several accents over the e's, but this sow's ear is truly terrible.

Not content with being incompetent at their nudie films like THE OFFICE PARTY, basically excuse for bad jokes and girls going topless as often as possible, SCARLET attempts to be an action film. I can't really spoil it with a description because you have to see the low-speed car chases, unbelievably dull shootouts (including one of the worst endings I've ever sat through) and an incompetent robbery set-piece to see how bad it gets.

The director cast himself as one of three robbers who botch a supermarket heist; they get away with considerable money but the edgiest of the trio shoots a woman dead as she runs down an aisle in fright. The police detective on the case arrives and methodically traces a chalk line around the woman's corpse in a scene I have never seen before in a police procedural -it reduced the level of SCARLET technique to a fourth grade class pageant.

The trio takes a cashier lady hostage and she becomes the film's untalented heroine, showing her breasts at one point (virtually a ground-rule for being cast). They take her to a brothel run by Shirley Boyd, key player in Boyd/Scott's stock company of thick-drawl-accent would- be actors, and film opens with Shirley wearing the title garment as she eats a banana (hint, hint...nudge, nudge).

Star of the film Byron Lord is the third crook and suddenly turns into Mr. Nice Guy, befriending the cashier and escaping with her from his comrades in crime. En route to the poorly staged downbeat (can I say nihilistic?) ending, we have very little content here. Perhaps the highlight is when the bored whores put a record on the turntable and start dancing around half-clad in a parody of mid-'60s dance crazes and strippers' routines. One of them earlier displayed a huge bare chest which is likely the film's only draw, both then at Adult cinemas and now via Something Weird (who else?) DVD.

One of the girls is played by Rosemary McKay, who doubled as the film's screenwriter, makeup artist and in charge of wardrobe - I guess she is the real auteur behind the throne, but then who would want to lay claim to authorship of this mess?