1969 (USA)
Ray Dennis Steckler
Ray Dennis Steckler ... Charles Smith
Carolyn Brandt ... Carrie Erskine
Ron Haydock ... Fritz, the photographer
Alan Smith ... Harris Fergeson
Gary Kent ... Frankie Roberts
Body Fever is Ray Dennis Steckler's homage to the film noir genre, and I think it tackles it fairly well. Things get off to a confusing start as, even though it was released on DVD under the Body Fever title, the credits brand it as Super Cool. Like most of Steckler's other films, and as was the custom among B movies of the time, the movie was released multiple times under different titles. Basically this was a great way to trick theatres and their patrons into spending money on the same movie over and over. The movie also went by The Last Great B Movie, which is almost accurate as it was, at least, Steckler's last great B movie.
The opening sequence to the movie, besides being a backdrop to roll the credits, involve a young woman committing some kind of cat burglary that at this point we really know nothing about. And roll the credits do, these just aren't the opening titles; this is the full credits from start to finish. Next we have the mob guy, Big Mac, she stole the stuff from bitchin about it and then threatening his crew. The guy is in his shorts and they really should have thrown a shirt on him because he is ghastly.
We're now introduced to our protagonist, Charlie Smith, played by Steckler himself as was the case in Incredibly Strange Creatures. Good time Charlie is a P.I. and like Jerry from Incredibly Strange is a general lazy lay about. He decides to spend the day on his boat, his last possession that hasn't been repoed, instead of working. Even though nobody is supposed to know where it is, Charlie gets a visitor who offers him $3000 to find a girl, Carrie Urskin, the cat burglar from the beginning of the film.
A lot of this movie is poorly written voiceover which Steckler uses to narrate the film. Awful jokes and a poor attempt at hipster-speak are par for the course. Since Charlie doesn't have his wheels anymore he spends the first part of this movie waling around and hitchhiking to various locations to find clues on Carrie Urskin. One person gives a name of another person and so on and so on. However, we have no idea where he gets the name of Fritz the photographer where he starts his quest. He simply says it's the first name on his list. I suppose he got the list from the guy who gave him the job.
At any rate, Frtiz tells him to seek out Carol Hollister her old roommate. The bad news is she's holed up with a mob-guy, Frankie Roberts. So under his direction she plays mute and refuses to help him. So back at his office, Charlie sends away his secretary and claims he's going to go over some more names on his list.
Now we cut to Carrie Urskin who's still prowling around but in the woods this time. So basically the plot is this, a couple members of this gang including Carrie Urskin stole a bunch of uncut heroin. Carrie then pulls another double-cross where she keeps the money from her accomplice as we see in the next scene.
Charlie now visits Waco, a long-haired hippy psychic/pimp! He leads him straight to Big Mac, whom he last saw her with. So Charlie goes to the pool hall where he supposedly can be found. And find him he does, but all he does is rough him up and send him on his way. So Charlie follows a few dead ends and meets up with his old friends who get this, is played by Colman Francis! And this scene that ensues is basically a reenactment of a real event that happened where Steckler found him drunk and down on his luck and offered his this part in the film and obviously wrote this scene just for him.
Charlie contacts another person fro the list, but only ends up with a date. Another lead introduces him to a young stoner named Julie and a hilarious scene where she asks Charlie if he wants to be a bird and even gives him a quick lesson. They make out a bit afterwards, hey Charlie doesn't have a bad job. Steckler even takes this opportunity to use some artsy camerawork and editing. She is nice enough to lead him to Frankie Roberts, who turns out to be her ex-boyfriend. I have to give Steckler credit on the script, which he usually didn't bother with. This film however has tons of characters who are acceptably developed and related to the others in some way.
He winds up at a party where he finally finds out where Carrie lives. But for whatever reason Carrie is actually at the party. She's supposed to be lying low since everyone's looking for her! Nice continuity Steckler.
Now we are 41 minutes into this movie that have been him just walking around and gathering clues. She tells his about how she took the stuff and it turns out the Frankie Roberts stole it from her. So she and Charlie become partners in order to get the stuff back from Frankie. Somehow she knows exactly where it is and they get it with practically no effort.
From this point on the movie ceases to be a defective flick and becomes like this capture the flag game with the bag of H changing hands a couple of times and people getting killed. Charlie also scores with Carrie.
All of a sudden, Charlie starts to wax philosophical: "Some people just can't make the day worthwhile, not even one minute." He's one to talk; he just lies around on his boat all day. He decides to steal heroin and sell it and he's suddenly looking down his nose at other people for being lazy!
We have another pointless scene which seems to be just an excuse to put Steckler's daughter into the film. A minor character from earlier in the film takes a piece of chalk from her and writes "Harris Ferguson owes me $1000.00" on the sidewalk where she lives. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention or this scene has nothing to do with anything.
There's a pointless nightclub scene so Steckler can show some nudity, and after that, Colman Francis makes another appearance. Now even though his previous appearance was clearly written just to give him a part, but it worked out because now Charlie has someone to hold the money for him while he was at the nightclub. You know what; no he still is a pointless character. didn't Carrie look after the stuff? And when the hell do they plan on selling it already!
This is part of the movie where the characters are really starting to drop off. And while this is going on, Big Mac has his way with a couple ladies when he gets a call cluing him in to Charlie having his stuff.
Charlie now sits and has this long monologue where he's mostly talking to himself. What was up to this point a decent low budget film noir gangster movie, has just fallen apart. Steckler obviously didn't know how to end this thing. Charlie starts acting like Dick Tracey, or some other comic hero and melodramatically decides to play it straight and dump the stuff down the toilet. Big Mac thinks it's hilarious for some reason and the movie ends with his maniacal laughter as he sees his face through a water cooler!
Despite this over the top ending, Body Heat has a lot to offer the Ray Dennis Steckler, B movie fan and since this DVD has a commentary by Steckler and an interview with Steckler, it's definitely worth picking up.
