Strange fruit, bring out for party time
What we have here, if you can believe it, is a chimera of film noir, early Russ Meyer, and a Ten Little Indians adaptation.
The plot is verging on parody in its simplicity. Two crooks and a floozy (Jayne Mansfield), somewhere in the eastern Med, steal a million dollars (yes a million dollars exactly!) from a navy vessel transporting used $1000(?!) bills to be destroyed. The robbery isn't shown, which is all to the good really, as I don't really think there was a Peckinpah type amongst the four guys apparently at the helm. In point of fact though it's never the robbery that's interesting is it? That's why I hate heist movies that concentrate on the plan and the safe-cracking, the interesting bit is always the squabbling over the loot.
The crooks end up on a sailing boat on the way to a deserted island which houses a disused palatial brothel. They pick up a couple of greedy stragglers on the way (the eavesdropping hotelier Livio and his incest-fixated yet frigid sister). On the island a motor boat has been stashed somewhere for the getaway, but Corbett (the crook who has the gun) doesn't know where it is, nor where the petrol is hidden.
Anyway the brothel has a woman and her manservant in residence, these two they broke the mould after making. The manservant is a cod-philosopher gypsy-talking henchman type, whilst the woman is an elderly ex-madame who has returned to the island "in order to die". She thinks she is the Empress of the island and is always talking about the Emperor, whoever that might be, she is mentally fragile to say the least.
It becomes a Ten Little Indians style mêlée after the cash goes missing. People are dropping like flies, and we don't know why. Corbett sums up the mood perfectly: "Where da party at? No dough, enough stiffs for a graveyard, no way out, nobody knows who's next and nobody knows who's doin' it" It's a nice movie to look at because it's set on an Aegean island, with a pretty mansion, fluted columns, palm trees, flora, sunshine. There's a lot of luridness here too. Jayne Mansfield's nymphomaniac character Darlene can't seem to stop mentioning that she wants a fresh pair of panties, that she is on her last pair. There's jazz music all the way through, just so we know we're at a party.
One user described this movie as unintentionally avant-garde, well I'd go along with that. This is the stuff that cults are made of. You wont believe the ending by and by.
The plot is verging on parody in its simplicity. Two crooks and a floozy (Jayne Mansfield), somewhere in the eastern Med, steal a million dollars (yes a million dollars exactly!) from a navy vessel transporting used $1000(?!) bills to be destroyed. The robbery isn't shown, which is all to the good really, as I don't really think there was a Peckinpah type amongst the four guys apparently at the helm. In point of fact though it's never the robbery that's interesting is it? That's why I hate heist movies that concentrate on the plan and the safe-cracking, the interesting bit is always the squabbling over the loot.
The crooks end up on a sailing boat on the way to a deserted island which houses a disused palatial brothel. They pick up a couple of greedy stragglers on the way (the eavesdropping hotelier Livio and his incest-fixated yet frigid sister). On the island a motor boat has been stashed somewhere for the getaway, but Corbett (the crook who has the gun) doesn't know where it is, nor where the petrol is hidden.
Anyway the brothel has a woman and her manservant in residence, these two they broke the mould after making. The manservant is a cod-philosopher gypsy-talking henchman type, whilst the woman is an elderly ex-madame who has returned to the island "in order to die". She thinks she is the Empress of the island and is always talking about the Emperor, whoever that might be, she is mentally fragile to say the least.
It becomes a Ten Little Indians style mêlée after the cash goes missing. People are dropping like flies, and we don't know why. Corbett sums up the mood perfectly: "Where da party at? No dough, enough stiffs for a graveyard, no way out, nobody knows who's next and nobody knows who's doin' it" It's a nice movie to look at because it's set on an Aegean island, with a pretty mansion, fluted columns, palm trees, flora, sunshine. There's a lot of luridness here too. Jayne Mansfield's nymphomaniac character Darlene can't seem to stop mentioning that she wants a fresh pair of panties, that she is on her last pair. There's jazz music all the way through, just so we know we're at a party.
One user described this movie as unintentionally avant-garde, well I'd go along with that. This is the stuff that cults are made of. You wont believe the ending by and by.
- oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx
- 23 may 2009