THE PLATINUM PUSSYCAT, filmed under the more generic title THE LOSERS, is a sad excuse for a movie, looking more like an unfinished collection of reels scavenged from some film lab bankruptcy sale.
Having grown up in Cleveland (I was still there attending college when THE LOSERS was made) I was able to identify the obscure Something Weird video and match it to its origins. In the IMDb Trivia section I have already listed some of its technical shortcomings.
What we have here is an incompetently made would-be action movie, completely incoherent with a plot line sort of applied through dubbing and narration. It's not as bad as say the WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY approach of the mangled RESERVOIR CATS (aka THE KILL), whereby a 1968 Gary Graver junker featuring Lilly Foster and Uschi Digard was intentionally mutilated in 1998 by some video maven for "comic" effect. But no amount of work could save this mess or make it much worse either.
Jeff Baker (who he?) stars as a taciturn ex-cop (kicked off the force on a morals charge) Michael, chasing around Cleveland in a quest for $100,000 of stolen money as well as trying to find out who killed the heroine's hubby Hollister. She is Dena, played by lovely blonde Sandy Roberts (I felt sorry for her when I saw how skimpy her credits were listed in IMDb), considered the prime murder suspect.
Michael, whose nickname is Baron for no good reason, stashes Dena at a safe house, where busty artist Linda Hopkins lives. Not so safe after all, as Dena is kidnapped, trussed up bondage-style and whipped, mainly for the audience's benefit rather than some scripting necessity. Especially 'cause there is no script.
Mike rescues her and the film floats off into cloud-cuckoo land with a scene of him finding a bomb (looks like TNT) under his car hood and tossing it away nonchalantly. This movie is literally beyond the capacity of smart-ass MST3K types to ridicule -it's low camp to the nth power already.
Some post-production tinkering seems evident with a lengthy sex scene involving low-level gangster Dino in a threesome with two busty floozies, featuring full frontal nudity and lesbian sex. This footage is so out of keeping with the rest of the nonsense I inferred it must have been a "spicy insert" to convert an actioner into porn suitable for adult theater bookings.
Plot twists start coming fast & furious (& pointless) as Michael searches for a spy named Carl, and runs into him walking down the street downtown (Terminal Tower is not shown for some reason). We get a topless shower scene by Roberts, and then Dena and Mike tie Carl to a tree to question him.
Dena taunts Carl by baring her breasts and rubbing against him but he rejects her yelling (dubbed): "You pig!". This unusual role reversal is par for the course in what my old friend from Cleveland Michael Weldon would call a prime example of a "psychotronic" film.
Things escalate as Michael uses a jack to torture Carl, dropping a car down on his body. Incoherent foot chases and car chases through Cleveland's The Flats district kill some running time, and a near-escape by Mike in a light plane is a non-starter.
A landlady originally from Dresden named Mrs. Hirsch briefly adds some of the ethnic flavor Cleveland is best known for; she turns out to be a baddie, finking on Michael & Dena's whereabouts to the gangsters.
SPOILERS AHEAD: Sam & Florence show up to give us a plot recap, with the revelation by Sam that "I killed Hollister". Sam has the missing 100 grand in his possession, and Flo insists on being serviced, in an interminable dead-silent humping scene later punctuated by voice-over in the vein of "Enter me please, enter me" trying to sound sexy.
For the finale, hard-boiled Mike seems ready to let Dena take the rap for her husband's murder but she uses her sexy body to win his sympathy (hey, this is porn after all). Sam offers the Baron (Mike) a split of the $100,000, but instead we get a particularly bleak shootout. The lame-duck cops finally show up to mop up, but the nihilistic ending portrays a bunch of corpses in a garbage dump like setting that definitely was not approved by the Cleveland Tourist Bureau.
Acting is dreadful, beginning with constipated-looking Baker, a guy who looks like he should be playing thugs in Italian Westerns.
I guess I'm taking it too personally, but this film portrays the Cleveland that expatriate comics, notably Pat McCormick and Tim Conway, made into such a laughing stock in the '60s and '70s. I escaped, but still feel some kinship to my home town, which deserves better.
THE DEER HUNTER was partially filmed there, making atmospheric use of one of many Russian churches for its lengthy wedding sequence, but of course that story wasn't set in the Forest City (yes, that was our official nickname). "A Christmas Story" was set in Cleveland making a Macy's like use of our Higbee's store (the Gimbels-type rival Halle's store notably is what Halle Berry was named after). So that's something for posterity.
Edward Montoro had a successful career as exploitation film distributor mainly with his still well-remembered Film Ventures Intl. banner, but as a director he's a no-show. Even Joseph Cornell or Bruce Broughton, the underground kings of "found footage", couldn't make a silk purse out of this hodge-podge.
Having grown up in Cleveland (I was still there attending college when THE LOSERS was made) I was able to identify the obscure Something Weird video and match it to its origins. In the IMDb Trivia section I have already listed some of its technical shortcomings.
What we have here is an incompetently made would-be action movie, completely incoherent with a plot line sort of applied through dubbing and narration. It's not as bad as say the WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY approach of the mangled RESERVOIR CATS (aka THE KILL), whereby a 1968 Gary Graver junker featuring Lilly Foster and Uschi Digard was intentionally mutilated in 1998 by some video maven for "comic" effect. But no amount of work could save this mess or make it much worse either.
Jeff Baker (who he?) stars as a taciturn ex-cop (kicked off the force on a morals charge) Michael, chasing around Cleveland in a quest for $100,000 of stolen money as well as trying to find out who killed the heroine's hubby Hollister. She is Dena, played by lovely blonde Sandy Roberts (I felt sorry for her when I saw how skimpy her credits were listed in IMDb), considered the prime murder suspect.
Michael, whose nickname is Baron for no good reason, stashes Dena at a safe house, where busty artist Linda Hopkins lives. Not so safe after all, as Dena is kidnapped, trussed up bondage-style and whipped, mainly for the audience's benefit rather than some scripting necessity. Especially 'cause there is no script.
Mike rescues her and the film floats off into cloud-cuckoo land with a scene of him finding a bomb (looks like TNT) under his car hood and tossing it away nonchalantly. This movie is literally beyond the capacity of smart-ass MST3K types to ridicule -it's low camp to the nth power already.
Some post-production tinkering seems evident with a lengthy sex scene involving low-level gangster Dino in a threesome with two busty floozies, featuring full frontal nudity and lesbian sex. This footage is so out of keeping with the rest of the nonsense I inferred it must have been a "spicy insert" to convert an actioner into porn suitable for adult theater bookings.
Plot twists start coming fast & furious (& pointless) as Michael searches for a spy named Carl, and runs into him walking down the street downtown (Terminal Tower is not shown for some reason). We get a topless shower scene by Roberts, and then Dena and Mike tie Carl to a tree to question him.
Dena taunts Carl by baring her breasts and rubbing against him but he rejects her yelling (dubbed): "You pig!". This unusual role reversal is par for the course in what my old friend from Cleveland Michael Weldon would call a prime example of a "psychotronic" film.
Things escalate as Michael uses a jack to torture Carl, dropping a car down on his body. Incoherent foot chases and car chases through Cleveland's The Flats district kill some running time, and a near-escape by Mike in a light plane is a non-starter.
A landlady originally from Dresden named Mrs. Hirsch briefly adds some of the ethnic flavor Cleveland is best known for; she turns out to be a baddie, finking on Michael & Dena's whereabouts to the gangsters.
SPOILERS AHEAD: Sam & Florence show up to give us a plot recap, with the revelation by Sam that "I killed Hollister". Sam has the missing 100 grand in his possession, and Flo insists on being serviced, in an interminable dead-silent humping scene later punctuated by voice-over in the vein of "Enter me please, enter me" trying to sound sexy.
For the finale, hard-boiled Mike seems ready to let Dena take the rap for her husband's murder but she uses her sexy body to win his sympathy (hey, this is porn after all). Sam offers the Baron (Mike) a split of the $100,000, but instead we get a particularly bleak shootout. The lame-duck cops finally show up to mop up, but the nihilistic ending portrays a bunch of corpses in a garbage dump like setting that definitely was not approved by the Cleveland Tourist Bureau.
Acting is dreadful, beginning with constipated-looking Baker, a guy who looks like he should be playing thugs in Italian Westerns.
I guess I'm taking it too personally, but this film portrays the Cleveland that expatriate comics, notably Pat McCormick and Tim Conway, made into such a laughing stock in the '60s and '70s. I escaped, but still feel some kinship to my home town, which deserves better.
THE DEER HUNTER was partially filmed there, making atmospheric use of one of many Russian churches for its lengthy wedding sequence, but of course that story wasn't set in the Forest City (yes, that was our official nickname). "A Christmas Story" was set in Cleveland making a Macy's like use of our Higbee's store (the Gimbels-type rival Halle's store notably is what Halle Berry was named after). So that's something for posterity.
Edward Montoro had a successful career as exploitation film distributor mainly with his still well-remembered Film Ventures Intl. banner, but as a director he's a no-show. Even Joseph Cornell or Bruce Broughton, the underground kings of "found footage", couldn't make a silk purse out of this hodge-podge.
