Dewey (Jackie Moran) makes his living running a cabin for tourists out on the Colorado river where he lives with his blossoming teenage daughter Coral (Adele Rein) and a sexy French maid named Babette (Babette Bardot). His latest crop of vacationers includes a cuckold doctor (John Furlong), his sexed-up wife (Alaina Capri), and a mysterious man (Ken Swofford) with a briefcase full of money. When their drunken tour guide (Frank Bolger) runs off with the boat, the guests are stranded at the cabin where their passions eventually collide.
Common-Law Cabin is full of director Russ Meyer’s hallmarks as there is plenty of hardboiled narration, scenes of big-bosomed, sex-starved women communing with nature, and rapid-fire editing. In fact, Meyer’s rapid-fire style is a bit too rapid in this one. The movie zips around so much that it often rushes through the plot at such a breathless place that it’s sometimes hard to get your bearings. It almost feels like he tossed out whole sections of the narrative in favor of keeping the cutting going (especially towards the end). Honestly, it probably would’ve worked better with a more gradual build-up and a less frenetic pay-off.
It’s also more of a pressure cooker drama than an out-and-out sexploitation flick as it deals with characters with pent-up passions, sexual frustrations, and deadly curiosities that are bursting at the seams. The cabin itself is basically a microcosm of society, and the characters are reflections of how Meyer views the beast that is Man. They are either good and righteous, weak and spineless, or duplicitous and crooked. The women, of course, are all generously endowed and oversexed.
Common-Law Cabin is one of Meyer’s lesser films, but it’s not without its charms, if you can get past the cast of mostly unlikeable characters, that is. There are some real odd moments along the way that still makes it worth watching, like a water fight that turns deadly. (I’m sure I’ve never seen that in a movie before.) It’s also packed with some funny, hateful dialogue that positively crackles. My favorite exchange being:
Husband: “Don’t pant! It’s an animal trait!”
Wife: “Must be the bitch in me, dear!”
AKA: How Much Loving Does a Normal Couple Need?
No comments:
Post a Comment