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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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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
letterboxed at 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 |
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