machineel

The film was apparently made in Jamaica with some beautiful musical sequences with singing and dancing that complement the simple story. There had to be a good budget to film that and pay top money to the world famous star. It drags in parts, though, with boring unnecessary speeches that over explain the plot, EXCEPT the few exquisite scenes with Nina Mae McKinney: there should have been more closeups of her, her screen presence is hypnotic! You only watch her, even when the other actors are talking you are drawn to her face to see her reactions! A beautiful love theme was under-recorded and is barely audible at times. I suspect some additional minutes of footage were edited out or lost.

Film starts out to be funny, then gets weird, and "Felicity Split" seems to be having trouble focusing her eyes; more like a zombie following directions. I felt sorry for the actress, clearly it seemed she was in a production that consumed her. Lots of of closeups of her rather pretty face, large Betty Boop eyes and defined cheekbones, but her catatonic reactions, silly smiling and staring were barely tolerable. After the first 15 minutes of fun and laughter the audience got quieter. Overall this film is a few notches above standard 16mm loops, in the same class of a similar film titled WET RAINBOW, with another obscure ingénue with one starring credit to her name. This is one of a handful of BETTER BUDGET ADULT FILMS that were very popular in the early 1970's. I noticed that hippie culture and hippie references were COMPLETELY absent from these films; in that sense they were mainstream even though there were huge centerfold ads for the premiere in Screw Magazine (a defunct New York underground newspaper). My opinion.

This film is stolen by bad girl ARLINE JUDGE as "Flo Carnes" (see pun in name: FLOWER MEAT) -- and when she calls Eric Linden "big boy" in her inimitable growling voice, she means business! My favorite scene is when she is putting on lipstick, covers half her face with her purse and all you see are her HUGE BULGING eyes on a really angry Eric while she mutters, "NO? YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AT CONEY ISLAND!" to a very naive Mary Kornman who just told her, "Awwwwwww, you can't have him!" This film evokes, presumably, Depression era teen angst. Miss Judge also sings a few saucy lines of "MAKES YOU FORGET YOUR TROUBLES" accompanied by a black jazz band, leaving no doubt as to her meaning. She even "marks" Eric (like a cat) by squirting perfume on him after she sings. Lots of PRE-CODE wardrobe and suggestive dialogue. A MUST SEE.