| Aaaaaaarrrrggggh! Excuse me a second, folks, while I go punch a wall.
Ow.
OK, I’m calmer now. (I’m also typing with one hand. That’ll teach me not to punch walls. Ouchie.) I just had to work off some anger over being duped by a video box. Y’see, I recently came across a cheesy-looking VHS tape entitled Female Mercenaries, a film that stars Lana Clarkson – at least, that’s what the box claims. (Liar! Liar!) Clarkson, of course, is the stunning five foot 11-inch tall, blonde actress whose B movie career came to a tragic end in February 2003, when she was found shot to death in the mansion of producer Phil Spector. Although she was a frequent bit-part player, (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The King of Comedy, Scarface) Ms. Clarkson played the lead in only a handful of films. I thought I had found one of them.
Well, Lana isn’t in Female Mercenaries. Neither is Terri Anne Linn (The Bold and the Beautiful), Victor Izay (Young Guns), or Toni Naples (Sorceress), despite what the box says. These people have never worked together, as far as I can tell. The usually reliable Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) lists this film as a 1983 release and repeats the bogus cast list. I might be the first human being to have actually picked up a copy of Female Mercenaries, popped it into a VCR and watched it. What did I find out?
There is no such movie as Female Mercenaries – it does not exist. MCM entertainment, a long-defunct cheeseball video distributor, randomly picked a bunch of real actors’ names and put them on the box. So, what movie is on the tape?
The Doll Squad (1973), starring Francine York, Herb Robins and Tura Satana (!), and directed by Ted V. Mikels. Gggrrrrrrrrrr! Perhaps I should explain why I’m so upset. There are several reasons:
I already own a copy of The Doll Squad, complete with its proper title.
It’s a really bad movie. I mean really bad. Even for a die-hard shlock fanatic like me, The Doll Squad is tough going. Sure, I was expecting garbage, but I was expecting Roger Corman-style garbage. Ted V. Mikels garb different area. The former is mildly chucklesome – the latter merely tedious (age is a whole There’s probably about five or six of you out there who know what I’m talking about.) Even Tura Satana, star of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) seems boring and dreary in this film. That’s quite a feat.
They lied to me! No fair! I did my research, dammit! Look, I bought Captive Women III knowing that it was actually the uncut version of Sweet Sugar (1972), which was precisely what I wanted. This is different. I’m used to video retitlings – heck, half the challenge of being the Video Vulture is figuring out what movie is hiding behind that fake title and generic box art – but if they had just put the real actors’ names on the box, I would have figured it out. Heck, just put Mikels’s name on there somewhere and I’d have known. Still, I guess I wasn’t the only one fooled – none of my reference materials cite Female Mercenaries as an alternate title to The Doll Squad. There’s even a used video merchant on the web, trying to sell "Female Mercenaries, starring Lana Clarkson" for a whopping $69.95! Sure hope they drop the price after reading this column. (You can get the video or DVD from Mikels’s website much cheaper – and autographed by the director to boot.)
Female Mercenaries is supposed to be an R-rated movie from the ’80s. The Doll Squad is a PG-rated movie from the ’70s. ‘Nuff said.
Mikels himself stated in an interview that he hates pirate-y video companies stealing other people’s movies and selling them as their own, without paying royalties to the original creator. He must really hate Female Mercenaries.
This revelation takes away from the late Clarkson’s legacy – she starred in fewer films than we all thought. Plus, it points out the embarrassing fact that some of the people who compile filmographies of her work don’t actually watch all the movies they cite.
If anyone out there already knew about this charade, or if you can provide proof of a genuine Female Mercenaries movie starring Clarkson, I’d love to hear from you. Obsessive movie nerds gotta stick together, you know. |
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