Ginger

Oh, I know the acting is wobbly, the plot clanks like a medieval dungeon, and the cinematography is dodgy. But this is pure '70s sexploitation.

I loved it.

Yes it is sexist, unpc and everything modern Hollywood tries not to be. But that is its charm. It is about cute women toting unfeasable weapons and getting naked in an unbelievable B-movie plot. So what? That's what we want with this stuff.

If you want boring and complacent cinema, go watch a movie with Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon.....

Ginger (1971) stars Cheri Caffaro as Ginger McAllister, a 23 year old woman who takes an undercover assignment for a private detective.

Rex Halsey and his crew have found a way to coax money out of the local rich kids. They get people hooked on drugs, prostitution, and blackmail people into paying them. Rex and Rodney and the crew look at it as steady income.

Private detective Jason Varone has sent two people in to investigate, but both times were failures. Ginger seems to have her reasons why she wants to go undercover. She doesn't seem to care if she survives or not. Ginger will use her mind and her body to get in good with Rodney, Rex's go to guy, and get the answers she's looking for.

Cheri Caffaro is the best thing about the film. If you want to see more of Ginger, the Abductors is the next film in the series.

Delightfully awful "Thriller" about a leggy blonde going undercover to catch a gang of bad guys and gals that are fleecing rich people somewhere in New Jersey and getting them hooked on drugs as well. Yes, the acting is really as bad as you may have heard. Cheri Caffaro says her lines with little conviction, yet she is one of the better thespians involved. I just loved the flashback scenes she goes through that are suppose to be so poignant but turn into being pure dreck - and a real hoot. Caffaro knows something about hoot, well, hooters that is. And so does the rest of the female cast. The detective helping Caffaro, William Grannel, has little acting talent either, but the worst performance which is so bad it becomes camp is by Duane Tucker as Rex Halsey, the guy that is the mastermind behind all the bad doings wearing a neck scarf throughout and has at least four buttons undone on his shirt. Everything he says he seems to be saying with such conviction to the audience as he madly overacts - rolling his eyes and saying pronouncements with facial gestures in the foreground of some of the cheapest sets I have seen in a film in some time. We do get many, many girls in various stages of undress though. The script is implausible. The budget super-cheap. With all its defects - and they are legion - I too enjoyed Ginger and look forward to seeing the two sequels. This movie is definitely a product of the 70s, a time when filmmakers could virtually and would do virtually anything they thought would be provocative. No PC here - and I find it refreshing. Movies today are so scared to walk the fine line that they have become flat in many ways. Ginger isn't flat(you gotta see it to believe it) at all. It is a guilty pleasure to be sure but one that I found very entertaining and was laughing with and about it from start to finish.

When I reviewed the film 'Christina' for IMDb, I commented that it was very poorly made in comparison with many of the earlier films of the same genre, such as the early 1970's series featuring the female private investigator Ginger. Later thinking back about this spontaneous comment I found it hard to rationalise why I had hated watching Christina, but had enjoyed the Ginger series; and I began to wonder whether this was solely because I was looking back at the latter series, which I have not viewed during the quarter century since they were first released, through the rose coloured spectacles of relative youth. Many of the criticisms I had made about Christina seemed on reflection to have been equally applicable to the Ginger films. These and other films of the same genre were made on a relatively low budget for the sole purpose of bringing in good returns to their promoters; or (if we are more charitable) building up the funds required for the production of a planned future epic or Oscar winner. They are basically simple exploitation movies with an appeal based on sex and violence and with no pretensions to cinematographic significance. The promoters know that the largest cinema audiences consist of young people who typically attend in groups or pairs and who expect an interesting but not memorable screening they can enjoy together. Films such as "Ginger" or "Pepper" appeal to girls and women because they feature an unusually capable female investigator who can always deal with male colleagues or opponents on a more than equal basis. Their recipe includes enough violence and female nudity to ensure that they have an equal appeal for youths and young men; and they always show respect for the traditional values of Society - the good guys always win out in the end and there is no tolerance of either criminals or revolutionaries. Why then should I remember the Ginger films quarter of a century later, whilst most of the other films of the same genre which I have seen since have now been totally forgotten?

To answer this question I obtained copies of the first and third of the Ginger films ("Ginger" and "Girls are for Loving") to watch again, and am now submitting my comments on both to IMDb. These two sets of comments should be regarded as complimentary - probably the main difference between these films is that the first is a typical very low budget production designed to test the market, whilst the third has clearly benefited from rather less financial constraints. In these comments I am limiting myself to generalities when considering 'Ginger', but examining more specific considerations in the case of 'Girls are for Loving'.

Viewing these two films for a second time I found it very hard to identify any areas where they are significantly better in quality than 'Christina'. All these films feature violence, nudity and sexually suggestive situations, with no redeeming social message, often to the point where they would be regarded by most viewers as no more than soft porn. They are intended to provide easy viewing but not memorable fare. The Martin and Porter Guide to Home Videos makes the telling comment that it will not describe "Ginger" as the best of these three films, but rather as the least repulsive. However the Ginger films are still available as DVD's, and are presumably still selling, over 30 years after they were first released, so I am not alone in remembering them when so many of their later imitators have been totally forgotten. After watching them again I feel certain that this difference is primarily attributable to a much greater tautness in the script. Watching many other similar films, viewers encounter numerous rather boring sequences where they wonder why they are wasting their time watching such trash. Ultimately this leads to a low rating for the film in question. The problem here lies in the direction. Whilst they were no better made or acted, the direction of the Ginger films is such that the story carries the viewer forward from moment to moment in a way which leaves little time for introspection or boredom to develop. In my view this is the reason they have survived whilst so many later films have fallen by the wayside. But their appeal is purely that of a guilty pleasure, re-watching them reminded me of the appeal of splurging on a massive and rich ice cream concoction after a long period of dieting. The only reason why this may be said to be a good thing to do is that, certainly for some people, an occasional indulgence of this kind can be of enormous value in helping them to maintain the ongoing discipline of dieting over an extended period of time.

If you know that you enjoy this type of occasional indulgence, watch one or more of the Ginger films. You will probably not be disappointed.

"Ginger"'s plot is flimsy, the dialog is wretched, its sentiment very un-PC (and just a tad bit racist), its look cheap, and the acting... um, well, I'll be kind and say a few people at least try to say their lines with feeling. Yet despite all these things going against it, I was thoroughly entertained.

Cheri Caffaro, the star of this made-in-New Jersey sexploitation "thriller," is largely what held my attention. Nearly a foot taller than any of her co-stars, with a slim figure, long-bleached blond hair and nearly non-existent eyebrows, Caffaro is more handsome than pretty or sexy. She could easily be mistaken for a transsexual ("Ginger: The Gender Avenger"--now THAT would've really been interesting). As an actress she's... better than some of the other non-actors in this movie, but she's got presence. Her "seductive" dance in a nightclub is a camp classic--made more so by her visually offensive pink outfit. There's a lot of sex and nudity, and more than a passing nod to bondage enthusiasts, with three scenes that have characters handcuffed or tied to beds, including the late Calvin Culver, better known as gay porn star Casey Donovan. Perhaps Culver/Donovan's work in hardcore movies is why he didn't balk at being shown Full Monty. Viewers also get treated to an anemic cat fight on the beach and some tepid lesbian bonding. Though all the sex is decidedly un-erotic, these scenes certainly work better than "Ginger"'s clumsy action sequences.

"Ginger" kind of plays like a relic from the porno chic era, only minus any hardcore content. Even the opening credits, with our heroine cruising the Jersey Turnpike in her gold Corvette, had me thinking of the title sequence of "Deep Throat" (yes, I know "Deep Throat" was released a year later, but I saw it before "Ginger"). And like a pornographic film, "Ginger" has absolutely no redeeming social value. And I enjoyed every minute of it!