The Manhandlers

This film begins with a man by the name of "Leo" (George Skaff) being shot and killed for blackmailing a local mobster named "Carlo" (Henry Brandon). As a result, with no other living relatives, Leo leaves his massage parlor to his niece "Katie" (Cara Burgess) who is subsequently shocked to discover that it was a front for prostitution. Naturally, wanting to remedy this situation, she immediately fires the prostitutes working there and then hires two honest women named "Liz" (Judith Brown) and "Mo" (Rosalind Miles) in their place. What she doesn't realize, however, is that Carlo was getting a certain percentage of the revenue from this place and he has no interest in allowing Katie to alter this situation. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film was pretty much standard fare for the drive-in market which was desperate for cheap movies to help keep them financially afloat during this particularly difficult time. That being said, although both Judith Brown and Cara Burgess were quite appealing, neither of them were capable of overcoming the low-budget aspects of this picture and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

I did not know anything about the movie and all the actors are unknown. Except Rosalind Miles who was in "Shaft's Big Score!"(1972) plus one episode of "Columbo", one of "Baretta" and one of "Starsky and Hutch". Seeing the title and the poster, I thought I'd see a movie like "Charlie's Angels"(1976-1981) or Mama's Dirty Girls"(1974). But the reality is quite different. Don't be fooled by the poster on IMDb, you will not see the girls in the film manipulating machine guns. You will only see them doing massages and you will see them naked at some point. The movie begins as a mob movie with one killing after another, but after that it becomes just a very soft porn and a very soft comedy. Watch it only if you do not have anything better to do...

I tracked this down to see Judy Brown in something other than a WIP flick. Three girls take over a massage parlor only to have the mob pressure them into making it a whorehouse. The overall tone of this movie tries to be serious but comes off light and playful. It really has an innocence compared to some of the other exploitation films of the era. The mobsters are quite laughable but entertaining. All three women are very beautiful and show us the goods but nothing too explicit. Most of it is shot in the parlor. There is an extended scene at an amusement park towards the end giving us some nice footage from the era. Although the title may suggest it the girls are not involved in any fighting or action scenes. If you like drive in films of this ilk its worth checking out. Nowhere near a must see though.