Revenge of the Virgins

You can almost smell the mould from the basement they undoubtedly found this one in. At first glance, this film looks like another one of the many low-budget westerns cranked out in the thirties and forties, even though it was made sometime later. It "borrows" its basic idea from THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE, i.e. a small group of people go prospecting for gold and fall victim to their own greed. A new twist is that they're prospecting in "injun country," and are being watched by a small all-female tribe.

This brings us to the real point of this movie. All of these Indian maids are TOPLESS. REVENGE OF THE VIRGINS was made at a time when independent film producers were just starting to put nudity into their product. Because this is such an early example, it is a very tame one. It's hard to imagine now that people would actually leave their homes to see a few brief, black and white shots of darkly-photographed breasts - but they did.

For all of you fans of cheap movies,this one is narrated by Ed Wood regular Kenne Duncan, reuses the music from THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS and is directed by Pete Perry - who gave us the amazing KISS ME QUICK!

Most of us who are over 50 remember Henry Darrow not just from HARRY-O, but from his far better-known role as Manolito Montoya on THE HIGH CHAPARRAL. Credited as "Hank Delgado" (his birth name is Enrique Delgado), Darrow plays gunslinger Wade in this schlock western penned by the late great Golden Turkey Award winning Ed Wood (under the pseudonym Pete LaRoche). The film definitely lives up to Wood's stellar (ahem) reputation as a *really* bad movie producer/writer/director. The cast thought they were filming a straight-forward low budget western, and only learned after the fact that "footage of explicitly topless 'Indian' maidens had been spliced into the film post production." Unfortunately, the nudity meant that while it was his first "starring role," Darrow, who "transcended lousy writing, directing, photography, somnambulant co-stars and rubber rattlesnakes to give a credible performance" couldn't list the movie on his resume. For fans of both Darrow and Wood, however, it's quite a B-movie collector's item, though I'd be more inclined to call it a D-movie! Hilariously, unintentionally funny.

(Quotes are from the book HENRY DARROW: LIGHTNING IN THE BOTTLE by Jan Pippins and Henry Darrow.)

Even though the sight of naked female breast is now easily available through every nearly every possible medium, there are still certain cinema freaks like myself who're seeking out specific movies because they were the first to feature nudity. Go figure! "Revenge of the Virgins" is one of them notorious first films to feature exposed nipples and, even though it's the most common thing in the world by today's standards, the year 1959 was quite early to show breasts! This is a shlocky piece of 50's exploitation with topless Amazon women (supposedly Indian natives) and treasure hunting at a place called Gold Creek. Because of the boobs, this is called an early "nudie western", but fact remains that it's pretty boring to sit through; even at a running time of barely 52 minutes. Basically a simplistic retelling of "The Treasure of Sierra Madre", this film revolves on a bunch of greedy cowboys – and one of them brought his nagging wife along – going on an expedition to a reputedly gold infested creek. The topless natives follow them around inconspicuously and every once and a while they shoot an arrow straight in the center of one of the cowboys' back. Even in a less-than-one-hour lasting film, about three quarters of the running time is filler. There's, for example, an insufferably long ritual dance sequence with the blond girl sitting boring in the middle whilst the other black- haired girls dance stupidly around her. "Revenge of the Virgins" (besides, how can you prove they actually were virgins) is a dull and totally pointless film that is NOT worth watching, regardless of some nice trivia gimmicks.

Let's not beat around the busy--this isn't a Howard Hawks or John Ford film. If you're a normal person with pedestrian tastes then go find an episode of Bonanza to watch. For the rest of you though....

Revenge of the Virgins is a sublime nudie-cutie written by the great Ed Wood and directed by Peter Perry Jr who would later go on to produce the fantastic steaming pile of trash "Hollywood High" in 1976.

The acting is about as poor as you could hope for, and the breasts are above average. It's like alchemy!

The plot is pedestrian and could easily have been culled from a long forgotten TV Western...prospector leads a party into Indian territory to find gold, interpersonal conflicts threaten them from within while they are slowly hunted by natives. Except in this film, the natives are nude, buxom beauties.

Revenge of the Virgins is less than an hour long so don't waste any more time--go watch it.

Hot topless chicks in 1959! Just saw this movie on a PBS station.

A lousy movie. Looks like a 16mm print. The Indian girls are topless and when their ponytails aren't in the way you see some very pretty breasts. The first time I saw topless was in the movie "Blowup" in 1966. This might be the first topless movie. Although nothing shows down below, no panties are in evidence either. A curious film only because of the nudity. Not listed in the credits is Henry Darrow, I think. You might remember Henry Darrow from the TV show 'Harry O" If you get NY City TV stations look for this film on WLIW late at night.