Satan in High Heels

Gritty, glum, moody, downbeat, depressing---all the elements that make black & white 60's sexploitation films based in New York City so much fun on a rainy afternoon. Superstacked sexbomb model and singer Meg Myles is perfect. Grayson Hall is great. Why Hollywood never utilized Myles' talents always puzzled me. Intrator lucked out casting her as a bitchy, cold-blooded user who gives an inch and takes a mile from everyone. He did a good job although his camera focuses more on Myles' feet than her famous 42-inches. Through sheer happenstance, she winds up at a Manhattan cabaret that's inhabited by a nest of spidery characters as jaded, rotten and nasty as she is. They try to mold her to their specifications. Her rebellion is futile because she wants to become the star of the club. Another 50's-60's bullet-bra icon, British blonde Sabrina, makes a rare film appearance as another club entertainer.

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.

The female of the species, is more deadly than the male!

Agreeably sordid melodrama is fine as a curiosity piece, although in truth, it's not titillating or sleazy enough to be of great use to hardcore exploitation fans. It stars Meg Myles ("Coogan's Bluff") as Stacey Kane. Stacey toils away as a burlesque show stripper at a carnival until her junkie ex-husband Rudy (Earl Hammond) shows up one night, wanting to start fresh. He's got a wad of bills with him (payment for a story he wrote), which is big temptation for her, so she steals it and takes off for NYC, where she soon starts a new life as singer in a nightclub, run by a lesbian character named Pepe (Grayson Hall of 'Dark Shadows') and owned by Arnold Kenyon (Mike Keene). Before too long, she's become involved with both Arnold and his ne-er- do-well son Laurence (Robert Yuro, "The Shakiest Gun in the West").

Overall, the movie is competently done, and certainly better acted than one might expect, with an especially fine, effectively bitchy performance by the sexy Ms. Myles. Hall and Keene are also quite good, but what's really amusing is noting that Paul, the suave, bisexual pianist, is played by Del Tenney. Tenney was better known as a cult director during the 1960s; he went on to helm "The Horror of Party Beach", "The Curse of the Living Corpse", and "Zombie" a.k.a. "I Eat Your Skin". English entertainer Sabrina (playing a character named Sabrina) rounds out the main cast.

Unfortunately for some, "Satan in High Heels" fails to measure up to that grabber of a title. It's not that the story isn't diverting at all, but the pacing is slow, and things never ever get that interesting, at least until Myles belts out her show stopping number near the end. In fact, the four songs in this movie are actually not bad.

Still worth a look, but it might not appeal to trash lovers across the board.

Six out of 10.

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. (**)

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 ****