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Angel
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5 |
Avenging
Angel
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3 |
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Angel
III
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3
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6 |
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DVD
score is for entire set
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Review
by Brian Lindsey
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Coming
at the very tail end of the drive-in era and propelled by a catchy
tagline ("High school honor student by day... Hollywood
hooker by night!"), the low budget exploitation flick
Angel racked up a stunning $23 million
at the box-office. Naturally this resulted in sequels — three
total — geared towards the then-burgeoning home video market.
Anchor Bay brings the original Angel
and two of its sequels to DVD in an attractive 3-disc gatefold
collector's edition.
In
the first film we meet Molly Stewart (Donna Wilkes), a perky 15-year
old with a stellar GPA and a reputation as a goodie two-shoes
at the private high school she attends. Her daytime guise hides
a sordid truth: abandoned by her mother at age 12, for the last
three years she's supported herself by hustling Hollywood Boulevard
as a prostitute called "Angel." Her only friends are the street
people she's come to know during her nocturnal rounds. These include
a trash-talking transvestite (Dick Shawn), a washed up cowboy
actor (Motel Hell's Rory Calhoun)
and the other hookers who share her turf. To both school officials
and her foul-mouthed lesbian landlord Solly (Susan Tyrell), Molly
maintains the fiction that her mother lives with her as a bedridden
invalid. Her disparate
worlds finally collide when a deranged, (literally) egg-sucking
serial killer (Miami Vice's John Diehl) slaughters two
of her fellow working girls. The lone witness who can finger the
murderer, Molly is taken under the protective wing of a gruff
but kindhearted detective, Lt. Andrews (Cliff Gorman), who eventually
learns of her dual existence. The killer makes a ridiculously
unbelievable escape from the police station and, disguising himself
as a Hare Krishna, begins stalking Molly on the boulevard. But
the teen's tough, streetwise Angel persona kicks into overdrive
when she discovers her transvestite buddy has been stabbed to
death. She picks up a pistol and goes after the killer herself.
Surprisingly
well-acted by Wilkes and Gorman — in spite of the dialog — Angel
is mildly entertaining trash that can't decide whether it wants
to be grimly serious or sleazy camp. For every dramatic scene
there's a counterbalancing silly one. (This is the only movie
I know of to feature a battle to the death between a wisecracking
drag queen and a guy dressed as a Hare Krishna.) It's also surprisingly
chaste compared to European exploitation fare. There is some full
frontal nudity on display, but ironically the majority of it occurs
in the girls' high school locker room and not when the hookers
are plying their trade. Wilkes, who was 24 at the time, actually
looks like she's 15 but her fellow students are mostly in the
25 to 30 range.
Avenging
Angel, cranked out the
following year but set 4 years later, replaces Wilkes with the
statuesque Betsy Russell as Molly, now a college coed studying
law. With the help of her friend and patron Lt. Andrews (also
played by a different actor), Molly's left the sordid world of
prostitution far behind her. The past is forgotten, the future
looks bright. When Andrews is gunned down in the street by a mob
hit team, however, Molly must become Angel again to find out why
he was killed and who pulled the trigger. She hooks up with old
friends Kit Carson (Calhoun again, shamelessly hamming it up)
and Solly (now an avant-garde artist!) to hunt down those responsible.
Z-movie veteran Ross Hagan (Sidehackers)
chews the scenery as the chief assassin, getting one of the most
ludicrous deaths I've seen to date. (Basically, he's killed by
a slippery floor... You'll have to see the movie to believe it.)
Were it not for a few violent killings and some bitch-slapping
the film would play as a comedy — and a really lousy one at that.
Russell is an absolutely terrible actress; Calhoun is so
over-the-top he's actually embarrassing to watch. Respected stage/screen
actor Ossie Davis, obviously slumming for a quick paycheck, has
a supporting role as a police captain. A new street pal of Molly's,
Johnny Glitter (Barry Pearl), is so irritating one devoutly hopes
the bad guys will blow his stinkin' head off. The cheesy score
tries hard to emulate James Horner's compositions for 48
Hrs. and Commando. Much tamer
than Angel, the nudity and violence
are barely enough to earn an R rating. Somehow they manage to
throw in yet another round of drag queen vs. villain fisticuffs
— only this time it's a tagteam match!
Despite its title,
Angel III: The Final Chapter wasn't
the end of the series; that came (thank God!) via 1993's direct-to-video
Angel 4: Undercover. This one's got
a higher caliber cast and not much else. Yet another actress takes
the Angel role: Mitzi Kapture, who'd go on to bigger and better
things on the small screen (Silk Stalkings, Baywatch,
The Young and the Restless). Having apparently given up her
legal studies, Molly is now working in New York as a news photographer.
She learns that her long-gone mother is an art gallery owner in
Los Angeles. Molly seeks her out but Mom is blown up by a car
bomb shortly after their brief reunion. A white slavery/drug trafficking
ring led by Octopussy's Maud Adams
had her rubbed out to guarantee her silence. Mom was smuggling
dope for them, you see, but got cold feet after her other
daughter, the half-sister Molly never knew about, became one of
the ring's coke-addled whores. Intrepid Molly once again slips
on the micro-mini, fishnets and stiletto heels to infiltrate the
operation and rescue l'il Sis. Helping her out this time is Spanky
(Mark Blankfield) — a gay ex-street hustler, now an ice cream
truck driver (!) — a dear old friend who wasn't in the first two
flicks. Molly gets a genuine romantic interest courtesy
of General Hospital's Kin Shriner; Shaft's
Richard Roundtree is the useless cop this time out. Singer-actress
Toni Basil and B-movie staple Dick Miller have cameos. And whose
idea was it to hire Lou Rawls to croon the end titles song?
Certainly sleazier
than Avenging Angel, this not-so-final
chapter plays it mostly straight (no Rory Calhoun for one thing)
but is still rather lackluster for an exploitation pic. (Are we
expected to actually care about these characters?) Mitzi
Kapture is definitely the best actress of the gals to play Molly
AKA Angel; somehow she manages to acquit herself with a modicum
of dignity. (Ironically enough considering the nature of these
films, she — like Wilkes and Russell in the first two — never
takes her clothes off.) The flick does have one memorable line,
though, sneered by Maud Adams' evil dragon lady when Molly is
captured by her gang: "In a few days you'll be flat on
your back in a whorehouse in Calcutta... fucking the locals for
fishheads and rice." Zing!
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| NOTE
Angel III really only deserves a "2"
rating, but I've had a fan-boy crush on cute 'n' sexy Mitzi Kapture
ever since her Silk Stalkings days. She merits a whole extra
point in my book! |
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All
three films look and sound remarkably good via Anchor Bay's collectible
3-DVD set. The oldest of the pics, 1984's Angel,
is the least of the trilogy in terms of visual quality (some grain,
a tad soft-looking) but is certainly acceptable. All three are anamorphic
1.85:1 and boast clear, robust mono audio tracks.
AB's Angel Collection is a bit skimpy
on extras but I suppose it's commendable that an effort was made
to include any at all. Aside from the expected trailers, Disc 1
(Angel) includes three deleted scenes
(the sound recordings were lost, so subtitles are provided) while
Disc 2 (Avenging Angel) offers an image
gallery of production stills and promotional materials. The attractive
packaging includes an informative liner notes booklet. 7/12/03 |
| UPDATE
The Anchor Bay box set reviewed above went out of print in 2007.
In November 2011 the films will be reissued by Image Entertainment
as a triple feature, likely using the same transfers. |
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