• Produced and directed by Pamela Sutch
• Written by Jack Dastardly
• Starring
  • Pamela Sutch
  • Tina Krause
  • Debbie D
  • Stephen McKay
  • Patrick M. O’Connor

You know, I was just saying to the wife the other day, “We need more movies featuring the RCMP — the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, colloquially known as Mounties.”

All right, I said no such thing, but I couldn’t think of a better way to start this review.

And you gotta admit, the Mountie’s reputation of squeaky-clean uprightness and moral determination has been made a punchline for a hundred years, but what police force in the world wouldn’t kill for that kind of 100% positive public image? I mean, the Mossad also has that “We always get our man” thing, but I can’t really imagine a bunch of Israeli secret agents also putting on choreographed equestrian exhibits, can you?

Plus, the Mossad isn’t who I’d think appropriate to help with the trials of one Miss Constance Fairheart (Pamela Sutch), an innocent waif who’s behind on her mortgage thanks to a fire in her bakery. Her landlord, Solomon Snakebite (Stephen McKay), is slimy to the core, lacking only a longer moustache with his goatee in order to twirl it. His ultimatum is pretty clear: You can erase the debt either by paying me back in 48 hours, or marrying me.

You sure know how to show a girl a good time on the first date, Sol.

Left to ponder such a gruesome decision, Constance then gets a letter in the mail, that due to some vague family relations, she has inherited $500,000 — enough to pay off the mortgage and start a foundation for the poor! Unfortunately, Solomon overhears this, and so his goal changes from Contance’s body to her booty.

The next day, Solomon and his glass-eyed henchman Groggins (Michael Grieco, and the movie’s worth watching for him alone — he’s like a combination of Lou Costello and Ned Beatty’s “Otis”)) waylay Constance in the wood. As every villain must, he explains his nefarious plan: to forge a document signing her fortune over to him. (Oh, did we mention that Solomon’s also a lawyer? Suddenly it all starts to come together…) And why won’t Constance be able to stop him? Because he’s explaining this to her while they’re tying her to a chair in an abandoned mineshaft, with a keg of TNT between her knees! Mwa-ha-ha-hah!! (In a concession to modern audiences, many of whom won’t watch a shot-on-video movie without tawdrier elements, these scene is played while Solomon opens Constance’s blouse, revealing her silk bra.)

As the fuse burns down and the dastardly duo scamper off on their errand of mischief, Constance screams for help. Oh, is there anyone who can save her? Anyone at all?

I did mention there was a Mountie in this movie, right?

Okay. There’s a Mountie and a choirgirl in a hotel room — Oh, you’ve heard this one before?

The Mountie in question is Rock Manly (Patrick M. O’Connor), who pulls the fuse out and unties her; he’s so gallant that he even covers her chest with his hat when one of her nipples kinda peeks out. He does not reveal to her (but tells in an aside to the audience) that he’s worshipped her from afar for years — and coincidentally, she feels the same for him, but keeps it similarly hidden out of a sense of decorum.

They take adjoining rooms in the town’s best hotel for safety (and because hotels are cheap and convenient to shoot in), awaiting the capture of Solomon. But Solomon and Groggins are endlessly devious, and contrive to get Rock out of the hotel (through a trumped-up tale that old Widow Frenshaw needs help birthing a horse, of all things). They waylay Rock and leave him trussed in a stable, then return to capture Constance again. The dynamite thing having failed previously, they go for the next tried-and-true murder method: Tying her to a buzzsaw table and then, naturally, leaving. (For variety’s sake, this time they hike up her dress and expose her panties.) Can anyone save her this time?

Second helping of cheesecake?

Why do you even ask? Rock got found by the widow’s daughter, so yes, he manages to get to Constance just before the whirring blade rides a little too far up between her legs.

(Methinks it’s time for the bad guys just to invest in a bullet.)

Solomon’s new plan, then is to get his temptress sister Sinestra (Tina Krause) to distract Rock so they can take care of Constance without interruption. (Correction: They should invest in two bullets.) Sinestra plays it as slutty as she can, but even her flaunting of her body can’t distract the pure-hearted Rock Manly. (And no, lovelorn Constance does not burst into his room to find him wrestling on the bed with a half-dressed floozy.) But thanks to the hotel’s bellydancing bellgirl…

…Well shucks, I can’t tell you everything, but I will let you know that yes, Constance will end up tied on the railroad tracks at one point.

Boy, if I had a dime for every time a date ended this way…

This production is undeniably cheap; although they try not to focus on the most severe anachronisms, this is at best a pseudo-period piece, such as one might see on the high school stage. Aside from Rock’s Mountie uniform, everything is of modern vintage: The costumes, the hotel rooms (although they don’t slip and show the TV sets), the train in the finale. But, as with a high school stage play, such things aren’t the focus; after all, if you’re in the middle of a story about a courageous Mountie rescuing the virginal damsel from the black-garbed villain and you’re noticing the smoke detectors on the hotel rooms’ walls, you don’t have your heart in the right place.

Because despite the impoverished production, this movie is witty and appropriately light-hearted. Appropriately florid dialogue abounds, and in between the main thrusts of the plot there are throwaway scenes that are just as fun to watch as they must have been to shoot. There’s a pointless but hilarious argument between Solomon and Groggins about the right way to cheat at poker; there are the frequent asides to the camera from just about everybody (processed to look like scratched-up black and white film stock, to set them apart from the main narrative), and there’s the belly-danching bellgirl. (No joke. She, played by Debbie D, shows up in a couple of scenes to deliver messages — and then later, when Rock goes looking for her, she’s down a quiet corridor in belly-dancer garb, shimming for all she’s worth for benefit of an Aladdin-style lamp. It happens again later when the bad guys want her, only this time she’s exhibiting her navel for a plush cat. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I loved it.)

My two complaints are these:

1) Few actors can pull off overwrought melodrama with the appropriate aplomb. Almost everyone here seems unwilling to really cut loose with the intentionally overwritten dialogue, causing those comparisons to high school stage plays to multiply. (Director/producer/star Pamela Hutch seems to have the right idea, but ends up having to restrain herself in response to her co-stars’ restraint; you can’t have just one actor chewing the scenery, after all.) This dialogue demands larger-than-life delivery.

Listen, I lived in Canada for fourteen years, and never once…

2) I’m sure there are chunky Mounties, and I’m sure they’re wonderful people, but Rock Manly ain’t exactly rock-hard. He’s a little bit further out of shape than I am, with a noticeable paunch and a chin that blends too smoothly into his neck. Hey, we past-thirty guys need love too, but the discrepancy between the image and the description is only exaggerated when Constance refers to him as having a “body of Olympic build.” (True, she could have been thinking of pudgy party-boy Bacchus, but I doubt it.)

Despite those (which really both stem from the low budget), I’ve got no complaints about the hour I spent on this movie.

The nudity here may seem at odds with the nostalgic story (each of the three female characters bears her rack at one point or another.) However, this is part of the final and most subtle joke, which would be lost on an audience not familiar with underground cinema: this feature was executive produced by Gary Whitson, one of the principals behind Wave Productions. Wave more-or-less specializes in niche fetish videos, usually focusing on non-consensual sex (light bondage, chloroformed co-eds, etc.). That’s not really my cup of tea, so I’ve never seen one of those videos, but the in-joke is that this movie uses just about all of those themes (women in jeopardy, bondage, softcore nudity) in service of a story exhibiting the “tawdry innocence” of the classic melodramas. Kudos to all involved.

A Notable Quotable:

“Were it not for her blasted morality, we could be picking out china patterns right now!”

- Solomon Snakebite

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 0
• breasts: 6
• explosions: 0
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0