Satan in High Heels

Petite, buxom Meg Myles is a hoot as carnival dancer Stacey Kane, a girl with ambition who ditches her drug addict husband and takes off for New York City, where a pick-up on the plane results in her getting a singing audition at an uptown club, Pepe's. Stacey boards with Pepe herself (Grayson Hall), a chic butch who puts her newest discovery in a leather get-up complete with riding crop! But trouble brews quickly for Stacey after she turns up the heat with both the club owner and his troubled son--unaware that her deranged husband has finally caught up with her. Competently-made B-movie was considered very risqué for 1962: it has fleeting nudity (very coy), gay and lesbian characters and a promiscuous protagonist. Still, it isn't all raunch. The plot is as top-heavy as most of the girls on display, and the score by Mundell Lowe is a delicious cinematic mix of cocktail lounge, bop and jazz. An entertaining dip into drive-in cinema's gutters. ** from ****

The movie is well enough done, and for what it was, a kind of cinema noire sexploitation, one of the better ones, even though it is now distributed by odd-ball outlets . Myles is a very competent actress,but her generous figure has been her worst enemy , as far as being taken seriously. She got a similar rap in 'The Phoenix City Story". But Myes forte is as a sensuous singer and she can hold her own with O'Day and the rest. The most interesting thing about this movie is the liberal use fetishism. An alternate title was straight out of Sacher-Masoch, " Venus in Furs" Meg Myles has a shapely foot and the director and the cameraman know it and pander to the fetish in several scenes. and the skillful Sado Masochistic leather slant is handled nicely, as well.; I've seen it bungled badly in some recent high budget stuff of recent years. I think the supporting cast was good, and credible with special kudos for Grayson Hall. I knew the club scene in Baltimore and NY in the 50 's and this flick captures it better than most.

Released by the "Something Weird Video" DVD label and promoted as a campy (s)exploitation flick, "Satan In High Heels" turns out to be, in reality, a slow, talky drama with touches of film noir (especially at the end) and a generally low-key tone apart from the musical numbers. Meg Myles is attractive (although she looks somewhat older than her age - 28 at the time) and has a throaty voice that makes her a good choice for the role of a cynical, sarcastic femme fatale: she clearly knows and enjoys her power over men, but when she meets one whom she is actually beginning to develop honest feelings for, will she be able to get him? All the performances are fair-to-good, and Sabrina, in a minor role, has a figure that will make your eyes pop out. The film has some lingerie shots and even some nudity, but it's very discreet and if you want more explicit stuff you can find it in the DVD extras! Not something I would watch twice in its entirety, but an interesting experiment nonetheless. (**)

Del Tenney fans MUST see this depiction of early-60's club life in which he plays Paul, a bisexual pianist (!). It's pretty hard to believe that this suave leading man later directed THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH and I EAT YOUR SKIN. The main character though is Stacey, played to the bitchiest by sexy, husky-voiced Meg Myles. Stacey moves inner-city with her junky boyfriend and gets a job as a burlesque entertainer. There, she gets catty with Pepe (Grayson Hall), her female boss for wanting her own way and becomes involved in a romantic triangle with Pepe's son and husband.

The music was by jazz composer, Mundell Lowe who's album TV ACTION JAZZ has become a rare collector's item over the years. One of the songs from that album (a nice version of 'Naked City') as been issued on to CRIME JAZZ, a CD compilation avalible from Rhino. The music in SATAN IN HIGH HEELS is pretty mundane jazzamaspazz but I'm after the the original soundtrack (from Parker Records) just for one great song sung by Meg Myles (in leather clothes and a whip!), 'More Deadly Than the Male'. Also starring in the film is Sabrina, something of a poor man's Jane Mansfield, who sings a really bad number before Stacey's act. I was amazed to know that Sabrina was a real sensation down here in Oz! She was down here regularly starring in television commercials (one was for Amcal oil-cubes!) and was featured in lots of newsreel footage (always holding her poodle, just like Jane) and magazines. I even found reference to her in Peter Doyle's AMAZE YOU FRIENDS, a crime novel set in Sydney during the 1950's.

Aside from all these fascinating facts, SATAN IN HIGH HEELS is a fairly enjoyable little film with lots of class. It also remains a decent examination of sleazy, smokey inner-city burlesque clubs which will never again be seen or experieced.

Too bad this movie is so hard to find in rental stores. It's got underground cult classic all over it, and deserves an annual revival at the Film Forum with audiences dividing up between those who do Meg Myles' lines and those who chant along with Grayson Hall: "You'll EAT and DRINK what I SAY until you lose five pounds IN THE PLACES WHERE!"

Designed as an homage to the noir sensibilities of the late Forties (think Blue Dahlia), this movie was filmed at a bargain basement budget in New York's old La Martinique cabaret. The hachi-machi dialogue and ratty looking clothes seem like a prophetic foreshadowing of Valley of the Dolls; the sleazy atmosphere of coffeehouse decadence make this a much slicker variant on some of the themes canvassed by the better known British noirette Beat Girl (featuring Christopher Lee and Oliver Reed). Satan in High Heels is essentially a showcase for the talents of three women: Meg Myles, Grayson Hall and Sabrina. Suave Z-movie director Del Tenney ("Horror of Party Beach") contributes a deft turn as gay piano player Paul. Of the three female principals, Miss Myles distinguishes herself for her ability to wear some pretty sharp avant-garde leather ensembles and deliver some punchy salvos. Grayson Hall rules the roost as Pepe, cocking a jaundiced eye at every sad sack who wanders into her orbit with a l-o-o-o-n-g draw on that impossibly baroque cigarette holder, and the mordant comment, "Bear up, darling, I love your eyelashes." As Herself, Sabrina is some force of Anti-Nature. Don't miss her big production number which finds her pneumatically shoe-horned into Charlie the Tuna regalia pouting, "I CAHN'T be good!" The big Meg Myles number, "The Female of the Species (is more deadly than the male)" had its title riff quarried for the soundtrack of some pitiful Sixties retread last year.

This is the movie that proves the truth in the maxim that if the good die young, the bad are ALWAYS much more entertaining in their indecent old age.