Like I said, this movie gives you rape, revenge, Henry Silva in a ridiculous rented wig and Keenan Wynn as a filthy degenerate. Both actors give fascinating performances. Anything else you may have gotten from it is like the cherry on top.
I put this one in on a night when I knew we'd be banished to the small theater because I didn't think it was one of the better titles but it does have some redeeming values.

Silva in particular is playing the part for some kind of humor value, I think just because he wants to give the paying customers SOME KIND of entertainment value. It looks like he assessed this at the beginning of shooting as a dog and plotted his course accordingly. Some of the lugubrious emotional scenes are clearly played for laughs.

Also, Silva has this great quality of magnetizing the camera, his face is so unusual and interesting to look at that the audience is paying attention to every little flicker that comes through. A hokey expression comes across as a brilliant parody of a hokey expression. He's great.

And so is Keenan Wynn. Wynn uses his rich, musical voice for most of his effects. He also has a lot of depth and energy held in reserve. He can give you a little display of his power and then scale it way down again. In this movie when he dials it down, he seems incredibly menacing and when he dials it up again, (and breaks off the dial) during the laughing/castration sequence, it's a great moment. Probably the best castration sequence in any movie ever.

Michele Carey at least looks good, but she was probably the least intense actress in Hollywood at the time. Pretty much any other actress could have pulled this off better. And honestly, if there had been a strong performance in that central role - plus a lot more zip from the director - this could have been a pretty spectacular movie, instead of this kind of sunken wreck that we all swam into to salvage the treasures of Silva and Wynn's performances.

Next week's movie QUEEN BOXER will likely be in the big theater again, since it seems like most Indy fans will have gotten their fix by then. If you felt cheated in the avenging female department this week, don't miss Judy Lee next week.

Thanks as always to I Luv Video. Go there! Check out my DVD pick shelves.