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She Man/The Sins Of Rachel

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    Ian Jane
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  • She Man/The Sins Of Rachel

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    Released by: Something Weird Video
    Released on: 6/13/2006
    Director: Bob Clark/Richard Fontaine
    Cast: Leslie Marlow, Dorian Wayne/Ann Noble, Jerome Scott
    Released: 1967/1972

    The Movies:

    SHE MAN (1967)

    Want to know what's great about She Man? It's directed by Bob Clark. The Bob Clark? Yep! The Bob Clark! The same Bob Clark who gave us Black Christmas, Porky's, Rhinestone, and the two Baby Geniuses films! This one was made in 1967, before he made Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and after he made his feature film debut with The Emperor's New Clothes which starred John Carradine. Interestingly enough, all three of these early Clark films were filmed in Florida.

    This cheap and dirty production tells us the story of Albert Rose (Leslie Marlow), a manly officer who serves his country in the United States Army. On the outside, Albert seems like a normal, masculine, tough talking soldier boy but he's got a secret - you see, he's into BDSM.

    Enter a dominatrix named Dominita (Dorian Wayne) who Albert decides to spend some time with. This proves to be a bad move on his part, as Dominita (who is obviously a man in drag) claims that she can prove Albert actually ran off during his tour of duty in Korea, that he deserted his company in the heat of battle, but he was never really caught for it. If word were to get out about the 'truth' of his military career, he'd be over and done with and possibly land himself in some serious hot water. Despite the fact that Dominita has made all of this up, Albert gets pretty wigged out by her claims and she's able to blackmail him into paying her a cool twenty grand to keep her mouth shut. In addition to the scratch, however, Albert also has to give Dominita one whole year of his life for which he agrees to be her submissive and do as she tells him.

    Dominita starts off Albert's year by making him work as her maid. In order to make this to her liking she has Albert hauled into her very own 'transformation room' where she and her cronies (who also appear to all be men in drag) apply make up and padding to Albert in all the right places and voila, he leaves the room not Albert, but a she man named Rose! Though Albert isn't quite sure what to think of all of this, he soon develops a taste for what Dominita has shown him. As he gets into his new lifestyle, he also falls for Ruth (Wendy Roberts), Dominita's secretary who seems to be more into chicks than into Albert, but that's okay, because Albert is able to convince her that he's the one and soon they're in love. They decide to get out from underneath Dominita's thumb so that they can run off together but they know she'll have none of it. They're forced to think of a plan and so they decide to expose Dominita to the world, but is their young love strong enough to prevail over the evil crossdresser with a whip?

    From the bookends featuring a guy behind a desk claiming to be a psychiatrist (presumably to add some sort of moral message of understanding to what is a flat out exploitation movie through and through) to the oddly noirish black and white photography, She Man is pretty funny stuff. The performances are as flat as a board from all involved but it only adds to the dementia that the film offers in such massive quantities. The very fact that the entire film is based around Dominita's 'secret' is funny in and of itself, as from the very moment we see her appear on screen it is painfully obvious that this is a dude in a girl's outfit - anyone who can't see this, like Albert, must be retarded somehow.

    Clark keeps the meledrama coming fast, and the movie, at under seventy minutes in length, is a quick paced little soap opera that is never boring. The only recognizeable cast member is Jeff Gillen, who Clark would use the next year in Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, and again in 1974 when he made Death Dream. Clark co-wrote the script with Gillen which, according to the credits, was based on a story by Harris Anders.

    THE SINS OF RACHEL (1972)

    The second feature looks to have a slightly higher budget than the first film on the disc, and it appears in full color and in widescreen. Directed by Richard Fontaine, better known as Dick Fontaine, who was married to Pat Hartley who shows up in Andy Warhol's Screen Test. Oddly enough, Fontaine, who got his start in television, would go on to become Head Of Documentary at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England. With Hartley he ran Grapevine Pictures for a while in the eighties, where they put out some documentary films and some music oriented features. With The Sins Of Rachel, however, we get something better than a crummy music documentary or a Warhol inspired experimental film, we get a trashy soap opera in the vein of some of Ed Wood's more melodramatic pictures but with a distinctly early seventies vibe.

    Rachel Waring (Ann Noble of Ted V. Mikel's The Corpse Grinders, who also wrote this movie!) is a lounge singer who winds up the victim of a brutal murder when her head is smashed in and the life sucked out of her. The cops are called in to find out who snuffed her and why, and the investigation quickly reveals that her gay son, Jimmy (Bruce Campbell - no, not the Evil Dead guy), might just be the culprit. As the movie plays out, we learn of the truly strange relationship that Rachel had with her son, and we find out that she made him share her bed. To make matters worse, one night, while getting ready for a trip to dreamland, Rachel made a pass at poor Jimmy, forcing herself on him and causing a pretty serious, and completely understandable, freak out on his part.

    After Jimmy screams at his mother and tells her how much he hates for he runs out of the house to take comfort in the arms of his 'friend,' a biker named Peter (Chase Cordell, the lead from Richard Ashe's Track Of The Moon Beast). They cuddle and snuggle and Peter figure he can take Jimmy away from it all, but will his love be enough to help Jimmy deal with his issues? And did he really kill his own mother in a fit of emotionally uncontrollable rage? And what's with the old priest guy?

    This movie is so completely horrible, horrible, horrible that it's absolutely fantastic. Ann Noble's script is so intent on being daring by tackling the gay subject matter that it has no other choice than to take itself completely seriously which results in some of the finest unintentionally hilarious dialogue to hit DVD in quite some time. At over an hour and a half it does drag in a couple of spots, but baby, when this one is on, it's on. The end result is a completely watchable steaming pile of WTF that somehow manages to combine gay themes with biker trash, murder, lounge singing and detective work without blinking an eye.

    The cinematography for the film is actually surprisingly good and while the movie is still obviously a low budget affair, there was some obvious care put into the compositions. Oddly enough, biker boy Peter gets most of the truly good shots, he's almost festishized in spots most notably towards the end of the movie. The majority of the film is dialogue heavy but when the dialogue is as ham fisted as it is in this feature that's only a good thing.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    She Man is presented in glorious black and white, fullframe as it was meant to be seen, in a very nice looking transfer. Contrast levels are properly set and balanced and there is very little to complain about in terms of print damage or grain - it's there, but you're going to have to be looking for it or overly picky to notice it once the movie starts. Foreground and background detail remains strong throughout and the black levels are solid and deep from start to finish. In short, the movie looks great.

    The Sins Of Rachel is another story. Presented widescreen at roughly 1.78.1 and not enhanced for 16x9 sets, this one was obviously taken from a pretty worn and beat up print. The colors are faded, there are scratches and noticeable instances of print damage throughout, and at times the image is a little soft. It's watchable, and given the obscurity of the feature it's even understandable, but this one doesn't look nearly as good as the movie that it shares this disc with.

    Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is the order of the day on both films. While these are hardly going to shack the foundation of your home, these tracks are clear and audible. Most of the sound is narration or dialogue with some music behind it. Sound effects are minimal and don't play a big role in either of the films. Everything is easy to understand and there aren't really any problems with these basic but sufficient tracks despite some mild hiss here and there.

    As is the norm with Something Weird Video, once you're done with the two feature films on the disc there are a plethora of supplements to wade through. Up first is the original fullframe theatrical trailers for The Sins Of Rachel. It's a good one, but sadly the trailer for She-Man is nowhere to be found. Continuing with the 'Lavender Tinged Trailers' are promo spots for 1970 Hot Summer Special (a montage reel that promises ten new films in all color, all sound and which includes clips from: Getting Teacher's Goatee; Love 2001; Johnny's Birthday Present; Love For A Professor; Bold & Impudent Is The Sailor).

    There's also a spot for A Personal Appearance By Author Ken 'Mr. Madame' Marlowe (a hysterical piece which features the titular Mr. Marlow in bed, in full drag, knitting while two naked guys sit beside him as he gives his sales pitch and talks about his book, Mister Madame), The Queen (which looks like a dated but semi serious documentary look at gay culture).

    In a similar vein is the trailer for Gay Liberation (in which a dude in a cowboy hat interviews various people at a gay rights demonstration). We also get a silent trailer for Andy Milligan's notorious New York City bath-house opus Vapors, I Was A Man (a black and white sleaze fest about a guy and his, ahem, changes), My Third Wife George (featuring a guy in a guerilla suit and plenty of naked ladies and really corny comedy), and finally, a grungy little black and white promotional spot for Lusting Hours starring Roberta and Michael Findlay in prominent roles.

    From there we're privy to four 8mm short films. The first - She-Man Short #: Jean LaRue - is a few minutes worth of a black man in drag dancing around to the sounds of some big band jazz. He does the splits, dances some more, and spins around a lot.

    Up next is Oddball 8mm Short #2: Going Native At The Beach. What's this? Well, a title card tells us that it's 1956 and from there we see a dude strip down to his boxers on a rocky beach and go for a swim. After he's exercised a bit, he drops his swim trunks and runs around commando style, in and out of the water. We see this happen a few times, a new year shows up ever time, and it goes on like this for just over seventeen minutes.

    Vintage 8mm Beefcake Short #3: Naked Cowboy is, as the title suggests, (color) footage of a guy in a cowboy suit who wanders around the desert with a rifle for a bit before perching on a rock and undressing in the sun. Once he's naked, he does some push ups, then he puts on a hat and rubs two sticks together to try and start a fire (seriously). It doesn't seem to work so he puts his pants on and about nine minutes later he's done.

    The last short, Vintage 8mm Beefcake Short #4: Warren Frederick Goes To Bed, is also in color. This one features the muscle bound Mr. Frederick, a former Mr. Universe, oiled up on a mattress posing, semi-erect, for the camera. He rubs his dong through a towel and and fondles himself a bit before standing up and posing for the camera, Charles Atlas style. Seven minutes or so later, I guess he's ready for his nap and the short is complete.

    The Final Word:

    Though the two features don't really have all that much in common, they're both pretty entertaining little exploitation movies that try too hard for their own good and end up working better as unintentional comedy than as a serious examination of gay culture or homosexual issues. Something Weird crams some fun extras onto the disc to give it some added value, making this one an interesting curiosity item that should appeal to the companies fan base or the simply curious...

    Want more info? Check out the Something Weird Video website by clicking here!
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