Saturday 24 October 2015

#44 Girl in Gold Boots (Wes)



Girl in Gold Boots
Our next movie, Girl in Gold Boots, was once riffed on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Now whilst I may love that show, it’s an episode that I’ve never watched as Girl in Gold Boots really is an awful name for a movie. When I could watch Mike and the bots rip into movies with titles like Future War, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and The Deadly Mantis, what hope does a movie called Girl in Gold Boots have of being watched? Well I had to watch it now, but the question is was I right to dismiss it or was it another hidden gem in the world of bad movies?
Michele (Leslie McRae) works in a diner where she seems to spend most of her day dancing. When sleazy Buz (Tom Pace) stops in for coffee and pie he persuades Michele to leave the diner (stealing all the money from the till) and her drunken father behind and head to LA where Buz’s sister Joan (Bara Byrnes) works as a gogo girl. On the way they pick up hitcher Critter (Jody Daniel) and rob a convienience store. When they reach LA Michele gets hired at the club Haunted House and becomes the dancer she’s always dreamed of being, whilst Buz becomes a drug dealer and Critter becomes the janitor. As Michele’s career grows, Buz makes the move from a smalltime hood into the criminal underworld and Critter mops the toilets. How will all this end? Will Michele be a success? Will Buz become bigger than Tony Montana? Will Critter finally get rid of those stubborn understains?

Having only recently watched Showgirls (see here) it’s impossible not to make comparisons. Girl in Gold Boots is basically the 60’s equivalent to that movie. It’s much camper, and doesn’t quite have the glamour to occasionally mask the sleaze, but it’s so similar sometimes you could be forgiven for thinking that Joe Eszterhas’s original title for Showgirls was Girl With Gold Boobs.
However unlike Showgirls, Girl With Gold Boots seems to have some sort of hidden agenda. Whilst it starts off like any other counter-culture movie from the era, with it’s anti-heroes (including the fact that Critter is a draft dodger) all heading straight down a path of hedonism and petty crime, it ends up with both a very “drugs are bad” and “crime never pays” message and Critter signing up to the US army just in time for the Vietnam War. You come out of the movie wondering whether the makers of this thought that by showing a rebellious teenage audience these, then maybe they’d see the error of their ways.

The other major difference it has with Showgirls is with its complete lack of decent choreography. The scenes set in Haunted House feature a group of girls who have all learned the same dance moves, but just haven't understood that they should attempt to all synchronise them. The head dancer Joan stands behind them on the same level as the band doing a bizarre combination of dance moves that someone has told her the name of, but that she’s never actually seen (when someone told her about the new hit dance called the swim, she decided to doggy paddle). Michele herself gyrates as though she’s attempting to watusi whilst standing on an electrified floor. You can’t help but think they would have been better off hiring Batman and Johnny Bravo as their dancers.
The music itself is a mixed bag. The main song is ok, but is over-used throughout the movie. As for the other songs, I really wasn’t that keen on them. The incidental music is great though, occasionally reminding me of a mix between the background music in a Hanna Barbera cartoon and the classic song The Detectives by Alan Tew.

The movie itself is quite well paced, and the acting, whilst hardly Oscar worthy is actually mostly ok, and no worse than your average 60s tv show. However whilst the acting may be ok, the characterisation is often flawed.
The villains of the movie are about as convincingly bad as those in the cop parody Police Squad. He may be using his club as a front for his criminal activities, but the most horrific thing that owner of the club, and crime boss Leo (Mark Herron) does is host a party where the entertainment seems to be a bongo player who plays the same fast rhythm throughout the entire party. Perhaps instead of trying to ram the drugs are bad message down our throats, it would have been more productive to society as a whole to teach the kids that ”Winners don’t use bongos” (taking this further, if anyone remembers the D.A.R.E. campaign, then I personally think that B.A.R.E. would have had a more positive impact on the world).

His henchman looks like the bastard child of Groucho Marx and Ortega from The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies (see here), and seems about as menacing as Elmer Fudd. As for Buz, I’m not sure it’s possible to be intimidated by somebody who wears his trousers pulled up near his nipples outside of tv talent shows, which may also explain why Michele goes for Critter instead.
You may get the impression that I didn’t like this film, but honestly as terrible as it may be, I actually enjoyed it. I don’t believe it would have rated so low on IMDB if it hadn’t made an appearance on MST3K, but this far into the list I’m glad it did as it made a welcome change from some of the awful movies we’ve had to endure recently. This movie may not quite have danced its way into my heart, but it managed to flail its way there in way that some people may think is dancing and sometimes that’s good enough.

Wednesday 7 October 2015

#44 Girl in Gold Boots (1969) (Colin)


Cast: Jody Daniels, Leslie McRae, Tom Pace, Mark Herron
Director: Ted V. Mikels
Genre: Crime, Drama, Music, Romance
When I heard the plot for the next movie on our list, I got an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.
When I heard the plot for the next movie on our list, I got an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.
The next movie in our list is about a girl who flees to LA in pursuit of her dream to become a dancer. She manages to get a spot in a popular LA dance show, but discovers that in LA, not everyone can be trusted and that betrayal and danger are never far away…..
I had to do a quick double take and re-check, because this plot sounds suspiciously like our #49(a) movie, Showgirls, (see my blog here). Had we listed the same movie twice? Was there a duplication? I got an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.
As it turned out we hadn’t made a mistake. The next movie on our list was Girl in Gold Boots and was actually made in 1969; a good 30 years before Showgirls. But it can not be denied, the plots are very similar, so the question was, is Girl in Gold Boots the 60’s equivalent of Showgirls? Or is it actually a good movie?
Michele, (Leslie McRae), works in a roadside café in the middle of nowhere with her alcoholic abusive father, (Victor Izay). When the café is empty, (which seems like all the time), she likes nothing more than to stick on some music and dance, (I say dance, flap her arms and move slightly is more accurate).
Strange little man and Simon Cowell trouser wearer, Buz, (Tom Pace), arrives at the café with intentions of robbing the place, (judging by the amount of customers, there must be at least $3 in the till), but when he stumbles upon Michele’s dancing he has an idea. He tells Michele that his sister works as a Go-Go dancer in LA and that he can get her a job dancing.
Michele weighs up whether to stay with her drunken father or run off with a strange little man and decides it’s a no brainer, (like Buz), and the 2 set off for LA.
En route they pick up a hitchhiker called Critter, (Jody Daniels), who carries a guitar and bursts into song at opportune moments. Tension mounts as both Buz and Critter like Michele and they both launch into a dick measuring contest throughout the journey.
When they finally get to LA, they go to the Haunted House, a Go-Go club where Buz’s sister, Joan, (Bara Byrnes), is the lead arm flapper. They meet up with club boss, Leo, (Mark Herron), where Michele gets a job as a dancer, Critter gets a job as a janitor and Buz gets a job as a drug pushing lacky.
This is when the trouble begins as Buz spirals from petty criminal to slightly bigger petty criminal. Joan develops a drug problem and is promptly demoted and replaced by Michele. And in the most chilling twist of all, Critter’s cleaning effectiveness is cast into doubt as he realises they are working in a hard water area.
Will Buz learn the error of his ways and go straight before it is too late? Will Michele follow Joan’s path from Go-Go to No-No? And will Critter’s order of urinal cakes arrive on time?
The Girl in Gold Boots appears to have been recorded on a chewed up VHS tape and both vision and sound are fuzzy, jerky and of a poor quality. This off course may have been due to the version I watched, (which was on YouTube), but I have since seen the MST3K version and it appears this is not a one-off.
There are some crazy edits throughout which cut scenes short and abruptly start the next scene. One famous bad edit can be seen on the MST3K version in which Buz ‘teleports’ into a chair next to Michele in a bar. This is very funny to watch and gives the scene a ‘Bewitched’ moment as Buz appears out of nowhere, twitches his nose and invites Darrin’s boss for dinner.
The bad quality of the picture may also explain why the Gold Boot dancers who appear throughout the movie are actually wearing silver boots. Maybe the tape was put through a boil wash in error and the gold has bled into the rest of the picture?
The bad quality of the picture would not explain McRae’s bad dancing and why everyone seems to think she’s the next big thing. She swings her hips and arms, bends her knees and squats a lot and apparently this is top quality dancing?!?! In that case during my festival years, when needing a no.2 and the toilets were, shall we say a little full, the manoeuvres I had to do to successfully have a poo would have got me into the Royal Ballet!
McRae’s bad dancing compliments Pace’s bad acting. It’s not totally bad, but is as cheesy as Cheddar Gorge. He tries to be this bad boy, but I’m sorry, pouring beer onto a biker’s bike seat, when he is not around, is not particularly James Dean is it? It’s even less convincing when he’s trying to be mean and moody whilst his trouser belt is around his nipples.
I do like Leo though and whilst his portrayal of a baddie does have a certain whiff of brie about it, it is done in a good, 60’s baddie TV show kind of way. In actual fact it reminds me of Columbo, (a show which I absolutely love), and in particular Jack Cassidy’s role as guest killer(s), (he was guest killer on 3 separate occasions). Herron grits his teeth in the same way, has the same mannerisms and an identical moustache. OK so Herron is a budget Cassidy, but good nonetheless. Anyway, I’ve taken up enough of your time talking about Cassidy, I’ll move on now.
Oh, just one more thing ma'am, I am aware that Cassidy only had a moustache in ‘Publish or Perish’ and ‘Now You See Him’, so there is no need to point this out in the comments section :)
I also like the soundtrack, which has a good 60’s garage band vibe to it. I particularly like the title song, (Girl in Gold Boots), which is played several times throughout and is pretty darn catchy. You will be humming it for days after!
So, is Girl in Gold Boots the 60’s equivalent of Showgirls? Or is it actually a good movie? The answer to both of those questions is yes!
If you’ve seen Showgirls then the outline of the story above must have seemed very familiar and for that reason it is difficult not to compare the two movies. The obvious similarities are there, the dancing, going to LA to dance and the sleaze, dirt and disaster this can bring. This is Showgirls, make no mistake, but a Disney version. This may have been cutting edge in the 60’s but due to de-sensitisation, it feels Showgirls-lite.
Make no mistake though, I like this movie on its own merits. I like the storyline, the soundtrack is good and the movie moves along at a nice pace and manages to hold onto the audience. Yes there are some unintentional funny moments, mainly caused by the bad edits, but this just adds to the enjoyment and charm.
So if you watched and liked Showgirls, then watch Girl in Gold Boots, I think you’ll like it. But even if you haven’t, watch it or at least the MST3K episode featuring this movie, (which is a very funny episode).
This is one of those movies that is actually quite good and does not deserve to be so high up on our list.
This is one of those movies that is actually quite good and does not deserve to be so high up on our list.
There’s that deja-vu again………..