Girl in Gold Boots

Girl in Gold Boots (1968)

** (out of 4)

Michele (Leslie McRay) is living in a small town working at a dead cafe for her drunk father. One day Buz (Tom Pace) stops in and offers her a chance for Hollywood. Michele has always wanted to be a go-go dancer so she goes along and the two head out for brighter days but end up in trouble with some crime boys.

Ted V. Mikels' GIRL IN GOLD BOOTS, for some reason, has a very bad reputation and I'm going to guess it's because it appeared on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It seems if you were on that show you were automatically labeled as being awful. Having seen most of the director's work I can honestly say that this here is actually a fairly well-made picture compared to most of them.

Mikels made a career out of making ultra low-budget movies and some of them managed to gain some acclaim just for their camp value. This film here really isn't all that campy and for the most part I would argue that it's at least well-made and especially when you consider the budget. The film at least looks professional and a far cry from some of the movies that Mikels would direct in the 70s and 80s.

With that said, there's still no question that there's not too much entertainment here. The story is a pretty familiar one as a couple good people go looking for riches and end up in trouble. The performances range from decent to poor but with the lack of any real exploitation the film is just a tad bit too dull for its own good.

Girl in Gold Boots was on IMDB's infamous Bottom 100 list (the list of the 100 lowest rated movies) until the number required for votes increased, it's directed by Ted Mikels (considered by many one of the worst filmmakers ever) and to this day it has an appalling score of 2,2. But probably I am not the typical viewer, since for me it was an ok movie and hence my score of 4.

The movie is about three youngsters that are going to Los Angeles. The title character is a girl that works in a bar and hopes to become a nightclub dancer, his boyfriend is a thug-looking guy that at times he is on a short fuse, and the third one is a cute guy that likes to sing and play guitar. When they finally get there they discover that is not like they hoped (the girl discovers that being a go-go dancer is not that great a job after all and the cute guy hangs around while he keeps an eye on the duo).

Despite it's a B-movie it's well made compared to many others of the time. It has decent cinematography, nice soundtrack with various good tunes of the time, during the credits and halfway in the movie various shoots of pretty girls dancing. Also, and this is the thing I liked most of the movie, the cute guy halfway sings a couple ballads just like Elvis Presley and he was the most endearing character of the trio. Sadly, since this movie was made by Ted Mikels (that already in 1968 had the reputation of being one of the worst directors ever), it automatically killed the actors' careers.

While at times the movie drags, it's watchable. And despite is made by Ted Mikels is competently made and it's an interesting time capsule as well.

...That really shouldn't have been combined. One half of the film is a woman chasing her dream of being a go-go dancer. The other half is about the seedy side of drug use, and drug pushers. Some films do well against the test of time. This one fell flat 10 seconds after its release. Bad acting and a second-rate band shoot this one down.

If Offbeat Cinema hasn't grabbed Girl In Gold Boots for one of their late evenings roasts than they are not doing their job in finding some of the worst cinema put on celluloid. This must have been a great second feature in the drive-ins in 1968 when people were getting down to something else.

On That Seventies Show one of the funniest lines I ever heard was from pretty and vapid Mila Kunis who said that nothing was ever going to get in the way of her ambition to becoming a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. That same sense of purpose exists with our leading lady Leslie McRae who dreams of going out to Los Angeles and becoming a go-go dancer. It certainly beat slinging hash in that New Mexico diner with her drunken father. When Tom Pace comes into her life saying he's going to LA where his sister does just that, McRae hears enough and jumps in the car with him. Along the way they pickup another wandering stranger Jody Daniels and the three of them are off to Tinseltown after Pace robs a filling station.

They find Pace's sister, a drugged out dancer working for club owner Mark Herron who's got his fingers in a lot enterprises, mostly illegal. Pace doesn't really care about his sister, he just sees opportunity for himself and McRae gets hired as a new dancer and Daniels becomes a club janitor. Herron indicates that Daniels could do better for himself with him and you can take that any number of ways.

The film is one sorry mess, lousy sound recording, inane plot, totally bogus climax to this piece of drama. If you recognize the name of Mark Herron it will be because you remember who was Judy Garland's fourth husband. Mark wasn't doing that great before he married Judy, and when she cut him loose this was the best his meager talent could get.

Oh and the music is bad Sixties music and the acting on the level of some of my grade school plays. When will Offbeat Cinema be showing Girl In Gold Boots?

This is a movie that wants to be kinda sleazy in a big bad way - you know, to show the dark underbelly and mean streets of the evil big city in a stark, realistic way, while contrasting it all with the hopes and dreams of a starry-eyed ingenue. And to show those dreams crashing down as the aforementioned starry-eyed ingenue is sucked into a downward spiral of sex, drugs and despair.

Sorry, though. This movie only manages to be lame. The fruity hippie-philosopher-musician (who can't play guitar worth a damn!!!), the allegedly menacing but actually ineffective villain (the world's oldest "bright young man"), the continuous near-nudity... well, OK, there are some good parts...

By the way, MST3K loves to show movies featuring greasy, oily villains, but the vaguely levantic nightclub owners in this movie definitely get my vote as most oleagenous of all.